The benefits of daily habits

As a boy, a ‘habit’ was always associated with something that was negative. A ‘bad habit’, (ignoring any nun-related comedy for the time being) was the phrase to explain repeated undesirable behaviours and actions. But I don’t recall a ‘good habit’ ever being used to recognise and encourage a much more desirable alternative.

To this day, to ‘have a habit’ translates as having no self-control over actions that ultimately lead to your own negative outcomes. But over twelve months, I’ve learnt that by accepting and nurturing a habit, you can harness the most powerful of tools for personal growth.

Almost a year ago, to re-train my creative eye, I challenged myself to take a photo every day. Every day I had to recognise and capture a moment in time, telling a story within a single frame. To achieve this meant stepping up my visual awareness, finding compositions in day-to-day life and developing my approach to storytelling – it also gave me deadlines to hit!

Now, to date, 365 photos later (otherwise known as my dailies), I’ve developed a daily habit – and it’s definitely a good habit! Through repetition and practice, this ‘good’ habit has given me back so many creative and technical benefits, feel good moments, not to say a large portfolio and personal record of my life over the last year.

So, habits, when you work on them, commit to them and embrace them, become, by their very design, part of your routine and thought process. They become second nature and…well, easy!

Now I realise that by focussing my efforts on nurturing good habits that give me comfort and positive outcomes, rather than spending energy beating myself up trying to break the bad ones, the benefits can be so much more enlighting! Here’s a habit that, long may it continue, gives me purpose and brings me positive reinforcement of my abilities every day.

After a year of dailies, I’m not sure that I can see a day ahead when I won't add to the collection. It’s part of what I do now, and re-envigours how I look at the world once again. It helps me to create storytelling content that wasn’t in the world yesterday and for that, I feel like I’m adding value. And the best thing, it’s not hard to achieve, it’s just a habit.

So, as promised, the nun joke….

I can’t stop making jokes about nuns…sorry, it’s a force of habit.

Brilliant!!

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