Habituality by Melanie

Habituality by Melanie - February 2026 Scholarship Essay

Habits are perpetually everywhere in everyday lives. My own life is filled to the brim with them. One small habit I have recently started incorporating into my morning routine to help me become more focused and productive is waking up early and doing a tiny bit of yoga. Wether it is a minute plank or a ten-minute stretch, it wakes the mind up, gets blood flowing. I have seen the physical improvement of my mood, and ability to work significantly increase solely this year alone. This was originally supposed to be for my New Year’s resolution (and most of those fail within a week) yet, here I am still pushing through. I have also noted that when I do planks, I feel at ease, I do not feel the struggle of holding my body up in that position for periods of time, it is relaxing in a way. Not only does this help me feel motivated but it really does help me become productive. I no longer sleep in classes after practice days; I do not necessarily feel the need to ignore the task at hand solely because I do not have the energy to do it. And most importantly, my reward system starts seeing reward in doing harder work, doing things that take longer give me more satisfaction than small satisfactory like social media scrolling. Habits, and how you utilize them are exactly the reasoning behind human behavior and patterns. Everything I do, or have done is in some sort a habit following rabbit hole.