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The Most Surprising Habit Success of All

Reflecting on habit #21 in my journey

Mary DeVries
2 min readMay 21, 2021
Image by Charles Davis from Pixabay

I like flossing my teeth! I did not see that one coming!

When I set off on a month-long journey of integrating new habits into my life I expected some of them to be positive and some of them to be difficult. What I did not expect was the one habit I most resisted adding to the list would be awesome.

It’s not like I’d never flossed before. I’ve tried many times to make it a habit. So why did it stick this time?

First, this habit definitely benefited from being part of my experiment. In the past, I’ve approached flossing very grudgingly. I’d stick to it for a day or two after a cleaning then let it gently slide away. Having a tick box to fill and writing about habits daily keeps all the habits more in mind and harder to ignore.

Second, I couldn’t find floss anywhere in the house the day I started this habit. How embarrassing! The store I went to only had floss in those little plastic one-use picks thingies. I try to avoid plastic in general and one-use plastic especially.

I didn’t have time to go to another store so I reluctantly purchased the plastic flossers. Apparently, the ease and convenience of this environment-destroying item were enough to convert me to a regular flosser. I…

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Mary DeVries
Mary DeVries

Written by Mary DeVries

I delight, despair and write about a life lived around the world. Fueled by Yorkshire Gold tea.

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