Realisation Part 6: H.A.B.I.T

I had just finished my killer physio paper and finally have my time and urge to write. This topic pops into my mind a week ago while i was halfway struggling through my exam preparation.

HABIT. A five letter word to illustrate a pattern of action done repeatedly until it became a behaviour done without concious attention or effort1,2,3. Some of the habits came naturally like the para-functional habits but there are also other habits which came through our constant similar method of doing things.

Since it is an act that become part of our behaviour, it may or may not require a long period of time to estabilsh a certain habit. Each time when we do something, a fraction of memory of way we did it will be stored in our cerebral cortex. When the same action is done repeatedly, it reinforces our brain to establish as the 'method' of doing the action. So after sometime, it became a habit.

Actually, the word habit is already self-describing. Did u notice the word is spelled as HABIT?

It forms from BIT of every repeated actions.
After a prolonged exposure, it became ABIT of our life.
Very soon, it became our HABIT.

See the pattern?? Now, many of us say it is so difficult to break free from a habit, especially those innate habits formed since childhood... But even the newly formed habits, what makes it so difficult to be changed or eliminted? Look below:

When we have a HABIT, especially those bad ones, we'd like to change/get rid of them.
However, there is always ABIT left no matter how hard we try...
We try harder, yet again BIT is still there underlying as a strong base of our behaviour.

Now u see why it is so difficult to remove a bad habit of a person, as well as how difficult it is to forge a good habit in us?

So, next time when u are thinking of doing something, remember that each action we do, it does leave its mark in us and will soon become our personal behaviour. Start a good habit today. As it takes double the effort to eliminate a bad habit to be replaced with a good one. :)


This is for pleasure reading. Written using the word habit itself is just to illustrate the picture and to avoid using too much of jargons...hehe...but its true our mind does remember our past actions and repeat it in our actions. No research has been done though, or probably they are somewhere out there just undiscovered by me. Anyhow, hope it has given some light to you in a way or another. ;)
Would also like to express my gratitude towards Dr. Phang Cheng Kar whom has enlighten me on this idea during his talk recently. :)