Choices Have Momentum

My wife is the only person I’ve ever met who actually does it. I’ll bet you can’t remember the last time you did it, unless you had popcorn last night..

Personally, I’ve been trying to do it more ever since the dental hygienist took out the jack hammer to get the crud out of my teeth.

Yep, talkin’ about flossing.

Embarrassed by the reprimand of my dentist, I’ve been trying harder to establish that habit. And, since there’s little else you can do while you flick teeth gunk onto the bathroom mirror, I found my mind wandering a bit while I flossed yesterday.

“Eureka! My life is like flossing!”

I usually only floss when something’s caught in my teeth, but this time I grabbed it because it was part of my routine. I chose to do it simply because I had chosen to do it the time before. Every choice to go ahead and do the darn thing made it easier to choose the right thing the next time.

Momentum!

Of course the opposite is true. Every time I go to bed too tired to floss, it makes it easier to just forget it the next night too.

That’s how habits are born and broken.

If you want something to change in your life, I’ll bet you can get it started by just doing that small thing once. That will make it easier to do it the next time. Then do it again. Before you know it, you’ve radically changed your behavior.