Forming a Habit

As I was practicing today, I kept thinking about habits. What are habits? Being stuck in a rut is a big fear of mine, and often I conceptualize habits as ruts. After all, Oxford English dictionary defines habit as "a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up." Then, a rut is a "long deep track made by the repeated passage of the wheels of vehicles." So naturally habits lead to ruts, right?

That might be one way to conceptualize things, but that frame leads to the negative. Habits can be good as well. Habits such as brushing your teeth every night or making the bed or arriving at meetings on time are laudable. Holding the violin bow correctly & playing the violin in tune are definitely desired habits!

But one can only form habits, good or bad, through repeated activity. It only counts as a habit if you do it the same way every time, which implies that you do the same thing multiple times, usually a lot of times. That means that the only way (not the best way, but the only way) to form the habit of playing violin correctly is to practice frequently!

I'm forming a March resolution: to practice violin almost every day in order to form good violin performing habits. Aside from the days I'm out of town, I'm going to practice (if even only a little.) According to the dictionary, it seems to be my only hope. Fortunately, it's executable!