Mona SharmaCelebrity nutritionist and wellness advocate

Why Breaking Habits Is Hard & How Rituals Make You Focused

11 Nov 2025 · 1 min

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Mona Sharma explains why habits stick: pair an action with a positive feeling enough times and it becomes a ritual. She lived in an ashram with a rigid daily schedule that felt torturous at first but eventually created intense focus and presence.

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Why is it so hard in the beginning to break these habits and start a new one? I always say that habits come and go, but rituals become you. And this is actually one of the greatest lessons that come from the ashram. Every single day, the schedule is the same, right? You know this from being a monk. The schedule is the same. We're up at the same time every single day, with the same activities scheduled at the same time while you're living there. The first few days, it feels like torture until you get used to it. And what's so great about it is that it teaches you how to become so, like, hyper present and focus. And you start to ritualize your behavior. So over time, with practice and repetition, and also associating with a feeling like, oh, this feels really good. By merging those two together, you ritualize your healthy habits.