We have officially completed the first quarter of the year! We’re calling this year, which is Year One of our family’s plan to reach location independence, the Year of Good Habits. Each month, I focus on improving or developing one new habit. Sometimes the habits are directly related to personal finance and sometimes they’re related to general self-improvement. At the end of each month, I have been continuing the last month’s habit (or trying to) and adding a new habit in. (But, just for totally transparency, I would not recommend starting so many new habits in one year for the average person. This is more an experiment for the blog. In real life, I try to add in one or two new habits a year).
Habits–whether intentional or not–have been proven to be incredibly important. They are routines that are so ingrained into our days that many of them we follow without realizing we do so.
Take my after school routine, for example. I get home, help the kids unpack their bags, and usually plug into my phone. I check Facebook and Twitter and generally waste half an hour of time. Habits have a predictable cycle–cue, behavior, and reward, according to Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit. We experience a cue (getting home at the end of a long day), engage in a behavior (pull out my phone, scroll for half an hour), and experience the expected reward (zoning out, resting, feeling a social connection). Continue reading “A Year of Good Habits: Quarter One Update”
