The Beauty of Habits

21 Days

There's the old belief that it takes only 21 days to break yourself a habit or instill a new habit into your lifestyle. Now this may or may not be true (and I may or may not have given up on reading the articles discussing it out of boredom) but the idea behind it is true. If you work hard enough to instill new habits in your life, sooner or later they take off with you. 

Tonight after pit rehearsal (and a surprising dizzy spell, but I couldn't very well pass out in front of the same band director twice) my mom asked if I wanted to stop for a drink. In the old days of last year, my thoughts would have immediately jumped to "oooh, yes, Dr. Pepper". Instead it turned into "yeah, I could go for a Powerade. Now sports drinks may not be that much better for you, but it does prove one nice fact: I have broken my inherit cravings for soft drinks. I do not longingly stare at the bottles behind the glass at the gas station. I don't sigh when I see the "3 for $12" sale at Walmart. And I believe my wallet thanks me for that. 

The best part about habits is that you don't break them by skipping them for a day. True, I've skipped the morning workout more than once over the course of this month and a half. Some days it's for valid reasons. Other days...well I found out that I am not wholly capable of convincing myself to do as much as I should be. But the next day I always pick it up again. The other day I put on a pair of pants I used to avoid wearing as it was incredible tight around the thighs. But I realized they're not as tight. It's a small victory, but I was Z-snapping my way through that day. 

The not habitual things are a bit harder to keep up with. I haven't touched the story in a while (partially because I'm STILL WAITING ON PEOPLE TO GET BACK TO ME WITH COMMENTS) but I try to keep it in my thoughts. Fortunately for me, it is the beginning of a series that I have gigantic plans for so I'm always thinking about it. And tonight I finally began the formatting process to get the manuscript to novel standard. It is a marvelous process that makes your original manuscript much longer. It's actually over 250 pages now. Not bad for a manuscript written in a month and a half.  

I also finished yet another book for the reading challenge. It was "The Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics". And I learned two things. A. - It is not smart to read horror while you're laying on the floor of your bedroom (I swear to Zeus I was scared to look up because I knew I would be in-sight of the space under my bed). B -  There is still pleasure in finishing a book regardless of what kind of book it is.

Nearly halfway through the second month of the year and the New Year's resolutions are still going strong. At least...the ones I've started already. Is there such a thing as "March Resolutions"?