Habits. Good for More Than Remembering to Floss.

Habits. Good for More Than Remembering to Floss.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”~ Jim Rohn

 

Well, it happened again. Another book title popped up to tantalize me. Somewhere in my email, a snippet about it appeared and I knew I would enjoy it. So, I ordered it, of course. I bought a used copy like I always do and it turns out this one is autographed! Lucky me! And once more, the pages have gripped me like a well-aimed lasso.

 

I get a little freaked out about what shows up in my feed yet I’m strangely fascinated. Cool but creepy, you know? Amazon has better intel on me than my family does. That cyber intelligence some people gripe about knows what we like, knows our habits and our interests. Armed with that knowledge, it dishes things up to pique our curiosity us on a regular basis! It works for me because I don’t have to go digging when I want to know more about what makes people tick.

 

Oh, the book! It’s The Noticer Returns by Andy Andrews. The tagline is “Sometimes you find perspective, and sometimes perspective finds you.”  The main character is an odd but very wise man known simply as “Jones.” He reminds me a lot of Simon, a similar figure in Og Mandino’s famous books I read decades ago.

 

 

 

It’s all about habits. Drop by drop

 

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. ~Aristotle

 

Jones has a way of showing up unexpectedly and dishing out wisdom at the perfect time. Oh, how I wish for a Jones to come along sometimes when I need him! I’m intrigued by a couple of his fresh thoughts about habits. Habits are for flossing and entering checks and saving receipts and putting things back where they belong and other mundane stuff like that. Right? First, you get a habit and then it gets you?

 

But Jones suggests, for example, that patience is a habit. No way! But he has a great point! “Patience'” he says, “is not a feeling. Patience is a description of a behavior…..patience is a discipline. It is an action. Patience is a chosen response.” Wow! In other words, patience can become a habit, like putting the cap back on the toothpaste,  which means it can be learned!

 

In another section, Andrews’ character Polly talks about a habit she’d learned in a marriage class. Silence and a nod, pausing for a brief moment before responding to an annoying husbandly remark had saved many an argument. A new habit, a new skill learned.

 

I’ll share more on Monday when I’ve digested the whole book but for now, I thought I’d pitch out a couple of thoughts to chew on as we learn together to see life with new eyes! What do you think? What else can we improve by adopting new habits?