The power of repetition

It’s through repetition that we rewire our brains. Doing something over and over, no matter how small, has a huge power. In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg, says we have a limited amount of will power each day. But after we turn something we want to do into a habit, that limited will power can be used somewhere else. As your daily or weekly act becomes a habit, you have unleashed a life-changing power. Duhigg talks about why it’s so hard to develop new exercise or eating habits:

Once we develop a routine of sitting on the couch, rather than running, or snacking whenever we pass a doughnut box, those patterns always remain inside our heads. By the same rule, though, if we learn to create new neurological routines that overpower those behaviors—if we take control of the habit loop—we can force those bad tendencies into the background…. And once someone creates a new pattern, studies have demonstrated, going for a jog or ignoring the doughnuts becomes as automatic as any other habit.

Norman Vincent Peale said “Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.”http://www.thunderheadworks.com/repetition/