Habits can be a propeller to success and the good life if they are based on virtues like discipline and diligence. Successful people have mastered the power of routinely doing what is necessary to achieve their goals. However, when habits are based on vices, they can destroy. Take for instance those who through practice have become alcoholics or addicted to cigarettes. Several of them have had to reap unpleasant harvest of debilitating diseases at some point in life. As we noted yesterday, looking for a different outcome in life will require a different approach. There must be a clean break from habits that tend to destruction and cultivate new ones that are in tandem with the good life we desire.

Habits can be a propeller to success and the good life if they are based on virtues like discipline and diligence. Successful people have mastered the power of routinely doing what is necessary to achieve their goals.

Those who have been stuck for years in a particular habit must be placed on notice that old habits die hard. This is the reason why people come up with new year resolutions which they hardly keep beyond the first ten days. Breaking off from old, destructive habits takes time. In some cases, it will require desperate measures and a lot of community support. Ibrahim Yücel was 42 years old in 2013 when he felt he had had enough of smoking. That was after he had smoked two packs a day for 26 years. At that time, too, he had lost his father to lung cancer. He came up with wearing a cage made of wire like helmet to prevent him from being able to put a cigarette to his mouth. He gave the key to his wife and daughter. If there are habits you have struggled with and you want to break loose from them, seek help from a support group. Above all, look up to God who has power to break everything that enslaves you.