Is it all about habit?

I think a Friday near the end of January is the perfect day to reflect on all the New Year resolutions that I did not make this year. As I reflect it occurs to me that I have not been as successful in past years with my resolutions mainly because I do a poor job of making any new behavior become a habit. Instead I have the intended behavior remain as merely an intention. I intent to do more of this, or I intend to do more of that. Tomorrow I will make sure I do this and that and the other thing.

Actually doing those things is hard. Creating the routine where I give time and energy to remembering what it is I value and what it is I want to accomplish is hard to do. I imagine it is similar to the concept of some advertisements I have seen recently where there are snapshots of many different kids and they tell what they want to grow up to be. "I want to be a drug addict.", "I want to work for the man.", "I want to die an early death due to heart disease.". You've seen this one right?

We, meaning most of us, do a poor job of dreaming, of creating a vision of the future, of planning our own lives to become who we want to be. We instead react to the situations around us and through a combination of good and bad decisions we end up on a path. My path is not a bad path. Most of you are also on decent ones. Some of you are on poor ones at the moment. And we have all heard of the poor souls who are on really bad paths. The enlightening for me, as I sit here and reflect, is that the path, no matter how good or bad at the moment, is both behind us and in front of us. And we can choose to leave the path and trail-blaze at any moment. And perhaps the real solution to finding the good path is to get off the current path as quickly as possible. To do this I need an idea of the path I want. I need to be active and plan ahead to allow me to step off this path. This visioning will allow me motivation that I can use to channel time and energy into creating habits.

My future path:
I will become a steady writer who regularly puts time into reading, writing, editing, and submitting. I will take care of my physical health through regular exercise and conscientious eating. I will take care of my spiritual health through regular bible study and prayer.

My habits:
1. I will write every day. (A least one sentence towards a current project. Minimum.)
2. I will exercise five times a week. (And yes, Wii Fit counts...for now.)
3. I will read my bible every day and I will use that reading in at least a daily prayer.

The order may be wrong, but those are the habits I am choosing to focus on.