Habit is hereby defined as the force or tendency for humans to remain in well-known realms of life, on both individual and societal levels. From certain viewpoints, it has its advantages and has been acting as a force of consolidation on societal levels throughout history. Sooner or later however, every system (or individual for that sake), has to change in order to adequately respond to the ever-changing nature of its surroundings. Nobody would question the fact that you have to slow down if you find yourself driving towards the ridge of a great rift, or that you might have to change your sales tactics if your good old habitual tactique ceases to produce the desired results.

So, habit, as far as its only effect is to consolidate adequate and respondent behaviours, can under certain periods be a good and helpful tool. Nobody asks the mother of a new born baby to pack up and leave the child just because she happens to have consolidated a habitual pattern as a result of childbearing.

The problem with habit arises when consolidated patterns of habit fail to successfully respond to the issues that they once were set to tackle, but the innate habitual force of the consolidated behaviour inclines us to continue as “business as usual”, even somebody next to us will stand screaming how wrong this is. The societal inability to switch from a carbon-based economy to a sustainable alternative is a good example of habit gone rampant. The longer the habit has had time to consolidate, the harder it will be to break with it. Up to one point, when things become so alarming, the incongruence between the dogmas and reality so great, that the shroud of false is lifted and necessary measures are taken. The problem is, that even though dysfunctional systems and patterns of behaviour almost always dissolve themselves, it might in some cases be all to late.

Another problem with habit (and there are many, as you shall discover reading through all the material), is that it limits and disempowers people on an individual level. Habit is the tendency that inclines people to stay in positions and relationships that they on some level know are not optimal, or even worse, that may be fatal to their psychological and physical well-being. It also makes realising ones potential more difficult, since even thinking that there might be an alternative to the life one is currently living, exposes an anxious incongruence between the actual circumstances of living and the desired way. Since anxiety makes it more difficult to tackle the daily comings and goings of events, we develop ways to reduce this anxiety – as not even thinking in the means of alternatives. We might postpone it as in “Well, changing job would be nice, but I have to do this what I'm doing at this moment and a few years, in order to do this and that”, or we simply start to identify ourself so heavily with our current lifestyle, that in time, we do not even desire any change any more. We have become completely assimilated within the shackles of our own present circumstances.

How to identify habit

So how do I go about exposing this monster of limitation and disempowerment that you so feverishly rave about, you might ask yourself. I think, by the time you got this far, you will already have figured out for yourself where to start looking, and how to begin addressing the problem. And if you didn't, here are some suggestions on where to start looking, as well as techniques and questions serving to identify habit in your life.

Habit is not only, as one initially may think, having the same job for 10 years, living with the same partner for even longer, eating breakfast cereal just of one particular brand or anything more dramatic or mundane, its about a lot more than that.

Habit is easily disguised under the much less provocative word of “favourite”. You might have your favourite colour, your favourite sex position, your favourite kind of music and so forth. All in the very interest of nourishing your picture of who you and other think you are, your ego, to use an over the years well established term. And here we go, time for the breaking news - your ego, is in love with habit, I'm sad to say.

The connection ego-habit is throughout life reinforced by a symbiotic relationship by the two, whereas your habits form your and others notion of who you are, and your ego on the other hand, encourages your habits since they over time have been so closely interwoven that it for yourself and others will be hard to tell the two apart. Consequently, any attack against habit will be perceived by the ego as an attack upon the ego itself!

Habit is the answer to why a thing such as having a cold beer alone within the confines of your own home, might seem a truly magic event the first time you do it in years, can deteriorate into a mindless repetition occurring on a day to day basis, granting scant satisfaction.

Novelty, is the solution.

You might try asking yourself the following questions:

• What's the difference between being content and being satisfied? What does the two mean to you?
• If you knew that you were going to die in a year, would you still go about doing the things that you currently do?
• When was the last time you surprised yourself doing something that you didn't think you were able to, or actually discovered that you that you liked something that you previously didn't think you did?

Of course, these questions elicit a lot more questions than answers, and these questions, this internal discussion that starts to manifest itself between the different structures of your personality, is the basis of bringing about change that will only do you good, transforming the petty, malicious, neglecting, disregarding thoughts that we all are behefted with from time to time, into creativity, well-being and dynamic force.

Why is it so difficult to break with habit?

There might be as many reasons as there are people living under habit, but there is one common denominator. Think of the following scenario. Think of you leaving all behind, leaving your job, your partner, your home with all our things that you own, leaving all of your friends, all your plans and all of your past. What is really left then? Everyone who tried to do this, with any rate of success, knows how ego-obliterating this can feel, and how difficult it is to do, without risking at least your happiness, or even worse, your sanity.

We all know this, even though we might not be consciously aware of it, and that's why it is so hard. The ego is protecting itself by striking us with fear, fear of what we might risk, making us think that we are really better off the way we have it. The ego doesn't want to be challenged with the prospect that you might actually discover something that is currently outside the immediate field of your previous experience. It would mean that the ego at least would be subjected to massive re-engineering, and that doesn't come around easily for a mental structure that over the years, especially during childhood, has been subject to such a massive process of shaping, of a constant bombardment of “do's” and “donts”

Any person trying to transcend a more novel life at the expense of habit, will probably be met with scepticism by the ones in this persons surroundings that hold a great fear of novelty themselves, or maybe want to break with habit, but do not yet have the guts. Any person trying to change his life for himself, would then be viewed as an indirect provocation to the lifestyles of those who choose to linger within the secure walls of habit.

With novelty, life becomes less predictable, that's for sure.