Show LETS LET'S TALK ABOUT L. BY CHARLES B. B ROTH The Secret of Good Habits Because you have been warned so many times against breaking habits you may have jumped to the conclusion conclusion conclusion con con- that all habits are bad But they arent I think the number of good habits is greater than the number of bad habits You may be astonished when I Itell Itell Itell tell you that being more effective and successful in your life is largely a matter of habit What I mean is that clever and successful people have formed helpful habits of thinking thinking thinking think think- ing and doing while neurotic and unsuccessful people have the wrong kind of habits That is the chief difference between them Look at a habit in this way and you will see what I mean What is habit except doing doing or or thinking thinking- the same thing often enough until doing or thinking it becomes automatic automatic automatic auto auto- matic and you do every customary act in the same way Such action is called habitual action When you think the same thoughts often enough until they have become thoughts that come and go without your bidding really without your control you are are- redoing re- re doing habitual or habituated thinking Now the secret of winning the right kind of personality and place in life is simply to determine a pattern of thoughts that you yon want to have and then to think those thoughts and keep on thinking them long enough until thinking them becomes a habit Lets Let's say that at the present time you are willy-nilly willy about everything everything everything every every- thing you do You cant can't make up your mind You waver You post post- pone You cant can't make decisions Those things are a sign of faulty thought habits Decide that for one week you will act decisively even if it wrongly in little things During that week act live carry yourself like a person of resolute habits Maybe one weeks week's experiment isn't going to be long enough to overthrow the faulty thought habits of a lifetime but it will help It will be long enough to put you on the road to right thinking and to right habits Dig deeply enough into the way the person you admire the most lives and you probably will find that he is controlled by a series of habits right habits right habits The sum total of those habits is what gives him him his personality his attractive attractive- ness The sum total of good habits in your life will do just as much for you |