Habits are funny things. They setup camp deep in the psyche and are difficult to budge. I have some good habits. I cannot drive a car if I do not have a seatbelt fastened. It’s odd but it’s there. I also can’t go to sleep without taking off my mascara. I’ve tried and it doesn’t work.

On the flip side of that I have some bad habits too. I scatter shoes all over my house. ALL OVER my house. The only improvement I’ve made to that habit is that I at least keep a pair together, it used to be so bad, my dog was trained to find the mate to a shoe for me. Why is it so easy to make bad habits, and so difficult to make good habits. I would think the mechanism is the same, but the bad habits just seem to stack up without a second thought, and making good habits is like running a marathon.

Sewing has a lot of possibility for habits. When changing the thread on my machine, I cut it at the spool on the top and pull the thread through from the needle. It can damage the tension discs to pull the spool off the machine, thus pulling the thread backwards through the discs, they are not designed for that. I also put bent pins and used machine needles in an empty pill bottle before putting them in the trash. That way they can’t poke through the bag or worse poke me when taking out the trash.

I have noticed in my life that when there is a reasonable explanation for doing something a certain way, I develop the habit fairly easily. I give you the seatbelt, thread and needle examples above. All three have an element of safety (2 for me, 1 for the machine) so those are easy for me to do. So far I have not found a reason to put my shoes away. I guess if I tripped over them I might find a safety factor but so far I’m not there, so they stay scattered all over the house.

I’ve been looking at my stash and my sewing room and realizing I could make some better habits there, but again, without a safety factor, I find it difficult to do. Putting things away so they are neat is NOT my jam. LOL. Putting things away so I can find them later is slowly gaining some momentum. I have been slowly making a specific place for things so that I can find them and I’m getting better about keeping that up. It keeps me from wasting a lot of time looking for stuff when I don’t have a lot of time to sew anyway.

I’m going to keep working on my habits, the good ones make our lives better, and the bad ones are an opportunity for personal growth. Except the shoes. I don’t think that’s going to change.