“They say the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.  The chains you put around yourself now have enormous consequences as you go through life.”

Warren Buffett

There are good habits and bad habits. The good habits take time and effort to build and the bad ones seems to be effortless, until they come back to haunt you… Trying to change bad habits, or instill good ones, can seem like a ton of effort if you take on too much. Starting small and building up is a great way to make or break a habit.

For example, a couple months I started seriously working on building a practice of daily meditation. I tried a 15-minute session out the gate but I wasn’t ready for that type of time yet commitment yet. Instead, I switched to starting with a 3-5 minute daily routine and built it up over a several month period. Now a 15-minute meditation session seems easy and I look forward to that time and absolutely won’t miss it. Building the new habit took time to for me to learn and ingrain the necessary skills. The same approach works for breaking a bad habit. Start small and build from there.

I think the key is to continually assess your life and review your habits both good and bad and see where you need to change. It certainly won’t happen by accident!