Daily Inspiration #40
John Irving
Good Habits

John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt, Jr. on March 2, 1942) is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.

Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978. Many of Irving's novels, including The Cider House Rules (1985), A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989), and A Widow for One Year (1998) have been bestsellers. Five of his novels have been adapted into films. Several of Irving's books (Garp, Meany, A Widow for One Year) and short stories have been set in and around Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1999 for his script The Cider House Rules.
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So John had something great to share about habits...

"Good habits are worth being fanatical about."

Everyone has habits.

Good, bad or indifferent we all have habits.

Some we are aware of and some that we may not realize we are doing.

A good habit can be viewed as something done habitually that adds benefit to yourself, someone or something else.

A bad habit would then be something done habitually that detracts from yourself, someone or something else.

We often fall into bad habits by default or as a product of influence from our surroundings.

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Often we don't even think about them until they have become a habit.

Good habits we often have to make ourselves do.

While that is clearly not always the case one could argue that it is often enough to take note of.

We won't get into it here but when a bad habit is replaced by a good one we have done ourselves a great service.

In order to keep our good habits alive and strong it can be quite beneficial to get exited about them.

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The stronger positive emotion we associate with our good habits the easier it will be to keep them up.

When we have good habits and don't put much thought into them it would not be difficult for a bad habit to slide in out of convenience and take over.

If we have excitement associated with our good habits, that excitement will fuel our desire to do it again and again.

Thus reinforcing the habit itself.

So, if you know something that will ultimately be beneficial if you were to do it habitually then do it!

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Do it and make yourself as excited as you can be about doing it!

This will anchor that excited feeling to your new good habit and make it so much easier to do each time you do it.

Not to mention, every time you do this habit you will be filled with wonderful feelings as a bi-product of doing it.

You will find yourself really wanting to do it each time as opposed to feeling like it is a struggle or a chore.

So make as many good habits as you can in life and always remember:

"Good habits are worth being fanatical about."

Thanks for reading,
Michael David
@michaeldavid

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