Habits Change Into Character
Mondays can be rough; that’s why I like to post motivational quotes to get me through it. Here’s today’s quote by Ovid:
Habits change into character.
About five years ago I had some very set habits. I liked to split a bag of potato chips with garlic cream cheese dip with my husband as we played Dawn of the Dead II on Wii and drank rum and Cokes. While we did save the planet from a zombie apocalypse I could not maintain those habits and a healthy waistline.
I’m not even sure how we got started with that routine. If you think about it, we probably could have killed a lot more zombies if we weren’t slightly buzzed with sticky trigger fingers.
How often do we combine bad habits without ever stopping to consider why we started them in the first place? Part of my video game ritual was to unwind at the end of long day and the other part was to connect with my husband.
The good news is that habits are a learned behavior, so they can be unlearned, or at the very least replaced with new and improved ones. Instead of relying on junk food, alcohol and monster annihilation to relax, I took up a new hobby of training for a bodybuilding competition.
Bodybuilding was just quirky enough a sport to hold my attention. The diet was intense but produced results, the exercises were constantly changing and I had to learn new skills like posing in a bikini while wearing 5″ heels. Eating clean and exercising helped me relax and sleep deeper and gave me more confidence than making it to level 12. (BTW – level 12 is like, amazingly hard to get to.)
The other part – staying connected with my husband – had to be adjusted. We scheduled date nights where we ate real meals together and didn’t just mindlessly munch on things. We took walks instead of playing video games. And when we do decide to veg out in front of the TV we switched over to popcorn and cut the alcohol from our drinks unless we’re watching something major like the Super Bowl.
Take a look at your own habits. Are they serving you? Do they represent what you want your character to be? If not, change them.
#SLIMethod
Lisa 😉
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Lisa Traugott is a Mom’s Choice Award winning writer, published author, fitness blogger, wife and mom of two….and Original Cast Member of AMERICAN GRIT, starring John Cena, on FOX!