What’s one habit of yours? Good or bad. Those are the only two choices — no hiding in “it’s complicated. And not really a habit.” Be brave. Name it.

Mine: I write and publish every day. That’s the good one. It costs me nothing but time, and it gives me back a self I recognize and respect each morning.

The bad one: I eat too late at night. I know why I do it. I do it anyway. That’s the definition of a habit — knowing and doing anyway.

Here’s how habits are built, whether we mean to or not: repetition plus reward, run on a loop until the mind stops asking permission. No decision required. That’s the design. A habit is simply a choice you made so many times it stopped being a choice.

Science says it takes longer than we like to admit. An average of 66 days for a new pattern to feel automatic, though the honest range runs anywhere from 18 days to nearly eight months. Not a New Year’s resolution. A season, and sometimes more than one.

The physical and emotional habits are rarely separate. The late-night eating isn’t about hunger. It’s about something unfinished in the day, looking for a place to land after I’ve given myself to too many other things so that I can get back to just me. Name the habit, and you often find the feeling wearing it as a coat.

Harry Warren and Al Dubin wrote it best, in their 1932 song — “You’re Getting to Be a Habit with Me.” They meant it as love. But the line cuts both ways. Anything repeated enough becomes intimate, becomes necessary, becomes you — whether it deserves the honor or not.

So — what’s your habit? Good or bad. Name it. That’s where changing it begins.

Thanks – Michael (he, him)

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This is also important – You’re a Hybrid.

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