I was consumed by its effortless beauty. The way the light reflected against it and allowed it’s golden color to truly glisten.

I wanted it. I needed it. So, I caved and got it.

Now you might be thinking I’m talking about a car, that new iPhone, a precious stone, maybe a horse? If this is somewhat the direction you were going, sorry to say but I’m actually talking about a crispy piece of bacon. Bacon that I’d told myself less than 24 hours ago I was going to stop eating because I was going to start eating healthier and for me, that meant starting by cutting out beef and pork.

As I bit into its crunchy deliciousness I wondered why I hadn’t lasted 24 hours. Why didn’t I get a salad instead? Why is it so hard to let go of things that we know aren’t good for us and break bad habits?

This goes for picking up that donut instead of that apple, drinking that glass of juice even though you haven’t had enough water for the day, watching tv instead of going on that run, sending that text to that number you know you need to block, staying in that toxic relationship or friendship, the list can go on.

Let's face it, it seems so easy to create bad habits, but so hard to break them.

According to Medical daily, habits are formed after our brains have learned, then repeated, something new. As soon as a behavior becomes automatic the decision making part of the brain stops responding. So, basically, you can make bad decisions without even really having to think about it.

Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, says that every habit starts with a psychological pattern he calls the “habit loop”. First, a trigger alerts your brain to let a learned behavior unfold then that behavior results in the habitual routine itself, and then your brain uses this to remember and replay the habit in the future.

Studies have even shown that 40% of the time we aren’t thinking about what we’re actually doing because our brains are trained to fall back on habitual behaviors.

It may seem like I’m suggesting you blame your brain for all the bad decisions you make, although this is partly true, I’m actually suggesting that you take control and start practicing and training your brain to fall into good habits.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s 2018 and it’s time to say goodbye to bad habits once and for all.

It’s time to identify these bad habits in our lives, switch things up and replace them with good habits.

Let’s repeat something good.