“Bad Taste”: Miss Me of Habits (Why do we miss routines / habits?)

In my last article, I had talked about the discovery of “The Paste Theory: for sustainable results”, which is 6 – step methodology to develop habits. It was going great. One day during my training session, a participant asked “Why do we sometimes miss a routine activity, even though if it is a habit?”

This question made me stop and think. I asked him for some time to give reply of this question. That day, I was talking to participants but continuously trying to unfurl the aspects of the query. Back in hotel, I kept thinking about the question and slept. The next morning while getting ready for 2nd part of the session, I tried re-calling everything I did, the day before. While checking all my activities I realized that I missed writing my diary that day which is my habit for quite some time now.

I related it with the question asked by the participant, I skipped the habit. Does this happen with you also? If yes, then this article can give you some insights to fool-proof your habits from missing a routine activity.

On my way to the training hall, I was thinking about the question; the incident of missing my habit of writing and “The Paste Theory”. Eureka!!! The Paste Theory, came to the rescue here.

I started the session with a question. The question “Why do we paste (brush the teeth) everyday?” The team started discussing to find an answer. The answer came as expected “it’s a habit”, most of them said. Next question was, “how do you feel if you don’t brush in the morning?” Most participants mentioned bad taste, flavor or odor. Another question to them, “if there’s no bad taste, will you remember to brush?” After a thought answer came as expected that it would be difficult. Now another question was, what is the role of bad taste?” We all agreed that it’s a trigger for habit.

Bingo!!! Here was the answer... Bad Taste is a trigger for re occurrence of habit or routine activity. If you miss the Bad Taste, most likely you miss the Habit.  

This emulates that the Bad Taste is the Miss Me trait of any Habit. It is behind the re occurrence of a habit. “Bad Taste” won’t let you miss your routines. They are the triggers and I call them miss me. If you miss them, you will miss habit / routine. Hence for re occurrence of any habit / routine you should have a Bad Taste, which will help you to initiate the activity.

If we want to instill a habit or routine, we must identify Bad Taste for it. We must ensure bad taste should appear every time when activity is expected to repeat.  This way it will be very easy to get the repetition of habit.

Next time, when you are trying to instill some habits using “Paste the Habit” Methodology, don’t forget to identify “Bad Taste” so that you never miss on habit or routine.

Let me know your comments and thoughts on this. If you want to know more about this, please write an e-mail to me at bj.bharat.jain@gmail.com.