How Are Habits Formed?

Habits and field paths are formed in the same way: by repetition. Villagers, as a rule, do not deliberately make a footpath to the next village. They just go the shortest or easiest way over the fields. Day after day, people go and come the same way. Their feet tread down the grass and beat the earth hard. By their repeated walking in the same direction, a track or path is made. The more often we do anything in the same way or at the same time, the more we shall be inclined so to do it. At last, a habit is formed.

Why is it easy to form bad habits, and so hard to form good ones? The reason is plain. Our natural inclination is to take the line of least resistance. It requires at first a distinct effort to take the more difficult of two possible courses of action. For instance, it is easier to lie in bed on a cold morning than to get up early. It is easier to tell a lie than to own up and take the punishment for a fault. It is easier to put off today’s duties to tomorrow than to do them at the right time. Now a habit is formed by repetition. Every time we yield to temptation makes it easier to yield, and harder to resist, the next time. So we form the habits of laziness, lying, and unpunctuality.