How do you know if you have a Habit? - eviltoast

I, am trying to understand if I have habits. My definition of a habit is: “Something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it” from the Harvard Dictionary

And It might look weird written here, but, I am not certain I have Habits. The most classic example is “Brush your teeth every night and morning”, but I don’t see myself naturally going to do it and most of the time I forget this and can’t seem to do it everytime a lot. So I can’t take that as an example of a Habit.

I eat everyday. But I don’t naturally go unconsciously eat every day. I forget every morning to eat, which makes me hungry at 12h, and at night I go est because I feel in my belly I need food, or because my Girlfriend is angry I didn’t eat yet very late because she asks me almost daily.

Hell I adore coffe, but in the morning I can just fully not think about doing a coffee. And I do take a coffee almost daily but because I think about all my pack of coffees that I putted behind my monitor with my grinder. It’s not a “natural thing I go do”? Because I can forget it if there is no joy stimuli for a coffee.

Ok last thing. I try to go swimming, but it’s because my girlfriend reminds me I really wanted to delete my belly, or because I think about my ideal me being more in shape and less tired everyday (which I’ve seen results on that part before stopping for no reason 2 weeks). When I go to the swimming pool, I put my stuff in the same area of Lockers, not always the same but the same area because I won’t forget. And I then go put my towel near the exit of the pool to dry myself when getting out of the water. Are those two things habits, or are those things logical choices that make sense in the current situation and I am overthinking this?

This is the longest question ever, but yeah, what’s a Habit I think, I’ve been running the question in my head for a few weeks now

  • takeheart@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Yeah the locker/towel thing would be a habit especially if you don’t actively think about it.

    You may not have a strong daily routine but all humans have habits and it’s precisely because you don’t actively think about them a lot that it’s can be hard to become cognizant of them.

    They also include behavioral preferences such as scratching your chin with your right hand when lost in thought 🤔, calling your girlfriend ‘honey’ frequently, consuming certain foods/beverages more than others, separating the trash, opening up social Media on your smart phone when bored, or taking your jacket with you when you go outside.

    Those are not the same for everyone but everyone has them useless maybe some severe medical condition is present.