After traveling for work and battling the “other” flu for more than a week, I found myself in yoga at 6 a.m. last week after a month hiatus. Every move toward yoga seemed painstakingly difficult - from getting out of bed, to brushing my teeth, to driving 10 minutes to the studio, to rolling out my mat. Then the sore muscles. Oh, the sore muscles afterward. Every movement served as a reminder that my life is once again out of balance. The scale of good habits and bad habits are a glaring mental display that good habits are easily broken.

I have found that good habits are forged with accountability, determination and consistency, and bad habits infest themselves in my life and strangle the good habits out. I also often find myself hating strongly disliking those people who run 6 miles at 5 a.m. every morning before fully reading the paper and sitting down to breakfast of toasted wheat germ cereal and French press coffee. EVERY morning. What are they doing right? What am I doing wrong?

According to the all-knowing Hetty Fore, it takes 21 days to make a habit and 21 days to break a habit. I have always thought a bad habit can be instantaneously created and a good habit is what takes days to make. I was wrong. I think that is a lie many of us believe. One misstep in the road and suddenly we are off the wagon, rolling down the ravine, face first in the desert with no water in sight. Life puts roadblocks in the way of our habit forming to get us off course, whether it’s sickness, travel, work, money problems, etc. The reality is that these roadblocks will always present themselves and it is pushing past the roadblocks that leads to continued success. It is also the things I mentioned above (accountability, determination and consistency).

Another thing to consider is the fine line between a habit (good or bad) and an addiction. I did a little Wikipedia research on habits, of course. According to Wikipedia, “A key factor in distinguishing a bad habit from an addiction or mental disease is the element of willpower. If a person still seems to have control over the behavior then it is just a habit.” That is a scary thought. One minute you have an innocent bad habit and then the next you have a full-blown addiction that you don’t have the willpower to beat. I think we should all take our bad habits a little more seriously. This might be a silly addiction in comparison to drugs or dieting gone eating disorder, but I think I have a full-blown snooze addiction. I cannot wake up to my first alarm. Ever. Never ever.

It also seems the best habits are the ones that are so deeply ingrained in us that we perform them subconsciously. Well, the best good habits. My co-worker wakes up every morning without an alarm clock at 5:30 a.m. A subconscious habit. The wise Mimo once said that he has to trick himself into being organized. I think we can trick ourselves into good habits. My latest trick is to park behind my housemate who cannot drive stick shift and leaves for work way before me, unless I go to yoga. Normally I do not park behind her, but lately I’ve been parking behind her. And I’ve been going to yoga. It’s genius.

I hope this hasn’t sounded too “7 Habits of Highly blah blah blah BS,” but maybe it would do us all a little good to think about the habits in our personal and professional lives.