Make a New Habit!

"We are converted not only once in our lives but many times. 

And the conversion is little by little. 

Sometimes it is as imperceptible as grass growing. 

But Lent gives us a time to move the process along. 

Intentionally. 

By small surrenders." (6)

~~Emilie Griffin, Small Surrenders: A Lenten Journey

The period of Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. This is traditionally a time for Christians to take up a practice of addition or subtraction to learn greater love for God and less self-satisfaction. I like Emilie Griffin's words above in relating this to a small surrender: any effort is a small surrender of one's self-indulgence. It is also serendipitously a way to create a new habit. . . .or a way to start working towards that.

People used to say that it takes 3 weeks to make a new habit, but current research indicates that it takes  longer. "If we can just keep it up for 21 days, it'll become a habit, right? Not so fast. The three-week rule is something of an urban legend, found a study led by Phillippa Lally, PhD, a psychologist at University College London. It actually took people 66 days (9.5 weeks) for a behavior to become automatic (or feel weird not to do it). But that's just an average. Some habits, such as drinking a bottle of water after lunch, turned out to be much stickier (it took 59 days on average) than doing 50 sit-ups each morning (91 days). Forging a new habit gets easier and easier as you gain momentum, Lally says. Eventually you'll stop counting the days… and just do it."(from 6 Ways to Become a Creature of New Habits)

So 40 days is halfway or "almost there" for reaching the ease of having a new habit. It is an intentional process in living a better way--in greater awareness.

It could be as small or simple as adding a glass of water each day to one's life, or subtracting one hour of tv each day. I've even thought it would be beneficial to add 2 minutes of meditation every day. That's do-able, right?

So think of a small surrender of addition or subtraction you can easily do for the next 40 days. . . and maybe longer.