Self-discipline it is not 19 Rather glibly one of them said,‘ Isn’ t it just about habit?’ Now I wasn’ t buying lunch, but I was looking for better value and something a bit more profound than this. I wanted an evaluation of a deep psychoanalytic construct as it related to the time and space continuum and all I was getting was‘ Isn’ t it just about habit’. To be polite, I asked him to explain how this worked for him. He said that the way he managed to be so productive and appear so disciplined( knowing him well I can attest that he is, and does) was by having a highly structured day with well-established routines. After a while, the conversation moved on to more interesting and sophisticated topics like what we got up to when drunk as medical students. But later I found myself wondering about‘ habit’ and how it related to self-discipline and to eating. I realized that just like a supporting pillar gives structure to a building, so a habit gives structure to our lives. We organize the human and nonhuman components of our environment around our habits. If, for example, we are in the habit of skipping breakfast, then our family will not expect us to join them at this time at the table. Nor will our favorite, healthy breakfast cereal be sitting in the pantry should we decide to eat breakfast one day. On this basis, it is unlikely that we will be eating a healthy breakfast anytime in the near future. If, on the other hand, we are in the habit of taking out fish and salad every Friday evening from our favorite fresh seafood shop, we would be equally unlikely to eat an unhealthy meal on Friday evenings. But what exactly are‘ habits’? We know what they look like – they are the same behaviors repeated over time. But how do we get to repeat the behaviors long enough for them to become habits in the first place? The answer lies not so much in changing our inner world as in rearranging our outer world.