Plastic Habits

Some day perhaps i will write more about what this meas to me. But for now i just want to start this definitive item and record at least the one thing about it below.

One aspect of a good plastic habit is that it is sustainable. The doing of the habit does not interfere its repetition.

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Mark de LA says

It looks like it might have

Seth says

M 2010-11-29 11:15:02 14630

BTW, I appreciate your explanation & probably won't feel the need to comment much more on the subject until you have a fool-proof way to stop bad habits which you can communicate to the οἱ πολλοί.

Well don't hold your breath for a way to stop bad habits from me, because when i discover that i'll be on my book tour and won't have any time left for fastblogit.

Actually plastic habits to me are much more about moulding good habits, than in stopping bad habits. Usually when i do a bad habit, i say to myself something like "well did that again" ... then i move on. My strategy is to have so much of my time taken up by good habits, that they crowd out the bad ones.

Mark de LA says

seth 2010-11-29 09:33:14 14630

source: taken from M's comment
This comment truncates in both my 64-bit & 32-bit IE8 & prevents the bottom of the page panel display.

I've deleted the long redundant comment which contained only the added message above. What were you trying to say?

Well the problem still exists with this item. I must have been transmitting the

. I did think of something this morning. Sustainability & bad habits are no surprise. Good habits which start out as against the grain are the only ones that sustainability is in question. BTW, the book Initiation & Its Results has some stuff on habits as well as the stuff on chakras.

Seth says

seth 2010-11-27 13:16:25 14630

M 2010-11-27 12:52:20 14630

seth 2010-11-27 11:53:00 14630

M 2010-11-27 10:28:55 14630

IMHO, a plastic habit is an oxymoron. If it is plastic (malleable) then it is not habitual. It is more like a higher operating principle.

Obviously we can change our habits. The sentence in red is false, but the proposition in your next sentence that i have turned blue, is true.

The point of my so called "plastic habits" is the awareness that i do not affect my behavior directly; instead i work though a media of learned and habitual behavior. When i get to the point of action, i should just do it (except in exceptional cases). I want the point where i control my behavior to happen when i change my habit and the way i have learned to do things. This is an attitude and a timing of attention more than anything else. I try to compose my habits, rather than compose my actions ... ideally, then, when the time for action arrives, i will just do it .. and flow into the moment. At least that is the ideal ... of course it doesn't always pan out that way.

You described an operating principle to me, not the oxymoron plastic habit. The usage dictionary definition of a habit:

Encyclopedia Britannica: [definition of habits containing unbalanced html has been deleted]

...is rather Pavlovian. Nothing says a habit can't be discarded & another behavior adopted. But whatever you want to call it is OK for you, confusing for me, & may need some un-commingling in your psyche before you finish. You may want to trademark it similar to the term jumbo shrimp as an ear catcher.

Well yes, when i coined "plastic habits" there was no other term that i knew that described what i was trying to do ... so i made one up ... and as such it is exactly like jumbo shrimp and is intended to carry with it what appears to you as a contradiction. We think of habits as things that don't change ... but plastic habits are things that we do change.

You say "may need some un-commingling in your psyche before you finish" but i don't see the need for any need for a un-commingling ... i am quite clear on what a habit is and how they change and i am using the word "habit" in the same sense as your encyclopedia definition. If you know something that i don't in that regard, then please express it.

When you say "Nothing says a habit can't be discarded & another behavior adopted" you have acknowledged the pertinant fact. However habits are complex networks of behaviors and whole modules don't always get discarded and and new one adopted, rather parts of the old evolve into the new. That to me feels like molding plastic.

Perhapt this editing will fix the editing problem in IE.

Seth says
apparently i never did write much about #PlasticHabits. but it is still crucial.

here is another take on it … #ceremony … in a tweet.

#1. Rituals make you feel powerful. Express your power to rise above negativity. Walk around the office at the end of the day saying, “Thank you.”

Every time you intentionally control your behavior. you affirm your power.

#2. Rituals express your best intentions. What weekly ritual might you employ that expresses your intention to bring out the best in others, for example? You might ask team leaders, “What are you learning about your team members?”

#3. Rituals let others know what matters. During one-on-ones, include one question that you ask every time. “Which of your strengths was most useful to your team last week?” (Remember to ask a follow-up to dig deeper.)

#4. Rituals set you free. The beauty of a ritual is it frees your mind. You know what to do. You don’t have to think about it.

#5. Rituals make you feel in control. Do the same thing at the beginning and end or your day for example. Two points of consistency bring a sense of control to hectic days. Follow the lead of a former coaching client. He meditated each morning before work.

Rituals add vitality when they enable leaders to consistently reconnect with what matters.

#6. Rituals allow for creativity. Adopt the ritual of greeting team members every morning. What might you do to keep the practice fresh?

#7. Rituals are points of simplicity and clarity in a complex world. At the end of the day, if you have a leadership ritual, you can go home saying you got something done.

i would hasten to add that …

#8. when i consciously repeat, i discover something new about what i do. i always am in a different context comming to ostensibly the same moment, from as a different me. to believe i would exhaust awareness of a moment by just one performance does not hold water.

said to the point in a tweet.

habits and rituals may get a bad rap in some new aged thinking … not in mine.

Plastic Habits

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