Creating Better Habits

By Melanie Salazar
Web Content Contributor

It seems there is a similarity in the aspects people advise to add or strip from your life to create a healthier one: managing your time better.

According to an article published by Healthline, “it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days for a person to form a new habit,” so consistency is necessary. A lot of people claim to be too busy or tired to incorporate new and helpful habits into their life without looking at the ones they already have that are not helpful.

One obvious example is, of course, the time you spend on your phone. We all know this statement is exhausted and have probably been told it hundreds of times, but I must admit, there is truth to it. I usually dread checking my screen time because it is always difficult to catch myself in the moment of being on my phone often.

Using your free time to be on social media is not always harmful, as it can sometimes be a good way to distract yourself with something of minimal importance. However, I found myself being on my phone into a hobby because of its convenience and neglecting others that impact me better.

I have always loved to read. Since I was younger, I found it fun and exciting, as long as I got to choose the book. My habit stayed strong until around my senior year of high school when COVID began and businesses shut down. Then, college started, and that transition was enough to handle without thinking of how to incorporate my hobbies into my schedule.

Lately, however, I made the time to read. It truly was not as difficult as I thought. Every day, I have to take the shuttle to campus. That is twenty minutes every day. Every night I have about two hours of free time before going to bed. I would spend it on TikTok or Instagram. Reading is something I greatly enjoy, so it was not difficult to motivate myself to read. It was just a matter of breaking my previous habit and making a conscious choice to not do what was convenient.

The book I was reading this past week was Sally Rooney’s “Conversations With Friends”. Rooney is also the author of “Normal People” which gained popularity after millions talked about the book on TikTok and YouTube. Rooney has a talent for capturing the complex and scattered emotions of a person, making her writing comforting to read. She also writes in a simple manner, making her books’ storylines easy to follow.

Reading is not everyone’s thing, but the point is to incorporate the hobbies you love, even though you may feel like you do not have time for them.

Featured Image by Melanie Salazar.