Bad Habits are Hard to Break

When my one of my nails broke, yesterday,I started thinking,I have had these acrylic nails for almost 8 months now, and it costs me money and time to have them filled every two weeks. And of course every two months you need to get a whole new set,and if one breaks well that's extra!
So, I was in the car with Bob, picking at the broken nail and he asked "when are you gonna get that nail fixed?" I looked at him and decided right then, "you know what? I'm not!" Bob looked at me quizzically. "I am going take the rest off, and grow them on my own." That's right. I realized that I have never in my life been able to grow my own nails. I have always had a bad habit of biting them. But, now I decided I will do it.
This year I have been on a journey of self discovery, I have completed a triathlon, I have successfully home schooled my daughter, and now I am going to discipline myself enough to break a really bad habit of biting my nails. I can do this, I have done things this year I never thought that I would or could. Today, I set a new goal,to break this nasty habit!
Now, I realize you are thinking ,its just growing out your nails. Well, its not. It's bigger than that, at least to me.It's about ridding myself of a bad habit. It's about self discipline and determination. It's about setting my mind to make a change in my life. To decide that sometimes I will need to set boundaries, and stick to them. I will need to have a plan, so that when I feel like biting them, I have another outlet to feed that desire. Conquering habits that "stunt" my personal growth will allow me to be free from the bondage that any bad habit holds on your life. Bad Habits are hard to break, and sometimes we hold onto them out of comfort, security, stubbornness or pride. Whatever the reason the bad habit is a constant reminder of our failure,our weakness, our lack of control over our own life. Bad habits starve out our energy, and feeds us spoonfuls of guilt. Sometimes to the point of surrender,leaving us feeling empty or disappointed in ourselves.Bad habits come in all forms, this particular one for me is a visible one, so that I know I will be held accountable for by friends,who will take notice if I am accomplishing this task.It's the habits that are invisible that are the most dangerous,the ones we can hide from others, or the ones we even hide from ourselves.They become so deeply hidden in the crevices of our being, they become part of our description, part of our character, those are the ones we must weed out, get to the core of why we choose to continuously fall back into time and again, only then, when we are honest about what those habits are, how they are to limit our lives to be fully lived and complete can we choose for ourselves to not live in defeat. I have chosen to challenge myself, to look at myself in the mirror and start to break chains of bad habits, some that have been handed down to me from generations, but to face them head on,with perseverance and faith, and continue to make small steps towards the finish line. Will I fall back into these, most definitely, will I step backwards, yes,but I will push through,dust off and continue to move forward,slowly.
I will begin today, to rid myself of this bad habit. I will take this habit and use it, another way, to shape my character,to build myself into the woman that I want to be. I know that as soon as I rid myself of this bad habit,there will be more of them lurking in the corners of my life, trying to hide for survival, but I will be ready. I will always be a "work in progress", but that's okay, I am not trying to be perfect, I just want to be the "best" me there is!