\u201cSince habit is such a powerful influence, and we\u2019re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training. \u2014EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.12.6<\/p>\n
The same goes for us. When a bad habit reveals itself, counteract it with a commitment to a contrary virtue. For instance, let\u2019s say you find yourself procrastinating today\u2014don\u2019t dig in and fight it. Get up and take a walk to clear your head and reset instead. If you find yourself saying something negative or nasty, don\u2019t kick yourself. Add something positive and nice to qualify the remark.<\/p>\n
Oppose established habits, and use the counterforce of training to get traction and make progress. If you find yourself cutting corners during a workout or on a project, say to yourself: \u201cOK, now I am going to go even further or do even better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good habits have the power to drive out bad habits. And habits are easy to pick up\u2014as we all know.<\/p>\n
Daily stoic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1. Drive out bad habits with good habits \u201cSince habit is such a powerful influence, and we\u2019re used to pursuing our impulses to gain and avoid outside our own choice, we should set a contrary habit against that, and where appearances are really slippery, use the counterforce of our training. \u2014EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 3.12.6 The same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9898,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9898"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hamzakhan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}