I picked up all my habits, good and bad, from my associations. I learned good grooming, posture and discipline at the U.S. Naval Academy. I learned courage, goal-setting and resiliency in my flight squadron as a naval aviator. I gained many positive lifestyle habits from my wife Susan, who is pro-active, considerate, reliable and totallyhonest. Both success and failure are habit-forming.
Habits begin as offhanded ideas and observations.
Then, with practice, they become layered over time like steel cables to shackle or strengthen our lives. Habits are like comfortable beds, easy to get into but difficult to get out of. Like submarines running silent and deep, you don't know you've developed a habit until you try to break it, but habits are really never broken. They are substituted or replaced by new and better behavior patterns. And this replacement comes with imitating and internalizing the lifestyles of the significant role models in your daily life.