Formation of Study-Habits : Part 2

How to Use Your Mind
by Harry D. Kitson, Ph.D.

(Page 6 of 18)

The third general principle to be kept in mind is that habits are most easily formed in youth, for this is the period when nerve tissue is most easily impressed and modified. With respect to habit formation, then, you see that youth is the time when emphasis should be laid upon the formation of as many useful habits as possible. The world recognizes this to some extent and society is so organized that the youth of the race are given leisure and protection so that they may form useful habits. The world asks nothing of you during the next four years except that you develop yourself and form useful habits which will enable you in later life to take your place as a useful and stable member of society.

In addition to the principles just discussed, there are a number of other maxims which have been laid down as guides in the formation of new habits. The first is, make an assertion of will. Vow to yourself that you will form the habit, and keep that resolve ever before you.

The second maxim is, make an emphatic start. Surround yourself with every aid possible. Make it easy at first to perform the act and difficult not to perform it. For example, if you desire to form the habit of arising at six every morning, surround yourself with a number of aids. Buy an alarm clock, and tell some one of your decision. Such efforts at the start "will give your new beginning such a momentum that the temptation to break down will not occur as soon as it otherwise might; and every day during which a breakdown is postponed adds to the chances of its not occurring at all." Man has discovered the value of such devices during the course of his long history, and has evolved customs accordingly. When men decide to swear off smoking, they choose the opening of a new year when many other new things are being started; they make solemn promises to themselves, to each other, and finally to their friends. Such customs are precautions which help to bolster up the determination at the time when extraordinary effort and determination are required. In forming the habits incidental to college life, take pains from the start to surround yourself with as many aids as possible. This will not constitute a confession of weakness. It is only a wise and natural precaution which the whole experience of the race has justified. The third maxim is, never permit an exception to occur. Suppose you have a habit of saying "aint" which you wish to replace with a habit of saying "isn't." If the habit is deeply rooted, you have worn a pathway in the brain to a considerable depth, represented in the accompanying diagram by the line A X B.

Let us suppose that you have already started the new habit, and have said the correct word ten times. That means you have worn another pathway A X C to a considerable depth. During all this time, however, the old pathway is still open and at the slightest provocation will attract the nervous current. Your task is to deepen the new path so that the nervous current will flow into it instead of the old. Now suppose you make an exception on some occasion and allow the nervous current to travel over the old path. This unfortunate exception breaks down the bridge which you had constructed at X from A to C. But this is not the only result. The nervous current, as it revisits the old path, deepens it more than it was before, so the next time a similar situation arises, the current seeks the old path with much greater readiness than before, and vastly more effort is required to overcome it. Some one has likened the effect of these exceptions to that produced when one drops a ball of string that is partially wound. By a single slip, more is undone than can be accomplished in a dozen windings.

The fourth maxim is, seize every opportunity to act upon your resolution. The reason for this will be understood better if you keep in mind the fact, stated before, that nervous currents once started, whether from a sense-organ or from a brain-center, always tend to seek egress in movement. These outgoing nervous currents leave an imprint upon the modifiable nerve tissues as inevitably as do incoming impressions. Therefore, if you wish your resolves to be firmly fixed, you should act upon them speedily and often. "It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new 'set' to the brain." "No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character may remain entirely unaffected for the better." Particularly at time of emotional excitement one makes resolves that are very good, and a glow of fine feeling is present. Beware that these resolves do not evaporate in mere feeling. They should be crystallized in some form of action as soon as possible. "Let the expression be the least thing in the world - speaking genially to one's grandmother, or giving up one's seat in a ... car, if nothing more heroic offers - but let it not fail to take place." Strictly speaking you have not really completed a resolve until you have acted upon it. You may determine to go without lunch, but you have not consummated that resolve until you have permitted it to express itself by carrying you past the door of the dining-room. That is the crucial test which determines the strength of your resolve. Many repetitions will be required before a pathway is worn deep enough to be settled. Seize the very earliest opportunity to begin grooving it out, and seize every other opportunity for deepening it.

After this view of the place in your life occupied by habit, you readily see its far-reaching possibilities for welfare of body and mind. Its most obvious, because most annoying, effects are on the side of its disadvantages. Bad habits secure a grip upon us that we are sometimes powerless to shake off. True, this ineradicableness need have no terrors if we have formed good habits. Indeed, as will be pointed out in the next paragraph, habit may be a great asset. Nevertheless, it may work positive harm, or at best, may lead to stagnation. The fixedness of habit tends to make us move in ruts unless we exert continuous effort to learn new things. If we permit ourselves to move in old grooves we cease to progress and become "old fogy."

Indiana University, 1921