Have you ever put water into a teapot to make tea before? Do you stop and think about what happens when you do? Like most of us, I'm sure you don't even give it a second thought, but let's examine it a bit.

First, you pour cold water into teapot, cover it, turn on stove, and leave. What happens next is interesting. As water beings to heat, molecules in it begin to move faster and faster until water begins to boil.

Next, steam gradually builds and builds until it finds a weak spot in teapot (the whistle) to escape. Once opening is found, pressure bursts from it, creating that noise that alerts you that it's time for tea.

What's fascinating about this to me is that this teapot can teach us a lesson or two about how pressure/frustration/stress builds and accumulates in our own lives.

What's even more deadly about this is that we often don't know how to release these pent-up emotions in ways that don't harm us, or those we care about.

So, let's examine this a bit more.

First, there are often disturbing things that we deal with that instead of letting go, we dump into our teapot (the back-parts of our minds/heart). For example: working with someone who goes out of their way to either get you in trouble or sabotage you efforts. All day long, things that affect us negatively usually gets dumped into our sub-conscious teapot instead of being dealt with consciously and released.

Next, everything is usually fine until we're caught in some situation that lights a fire under us. Sometimes being under stressful conditions that act as a continuous heat source, often causes our hidden feelings/emotions to begin surfacing like water that boils in teapot.

I bought a new treadmill a few months ago with intention of developing a personal exercise program to keep in shape. After I had set everything up, I sat down and put together a pretty interested workout routine in which I'd wake at 6a.m and run/walk for 30 minutes, 3 days per week.

I was able to stick with this for about 3 days. It's amazing how good plans look on paper but when it's time for action, they often change. Every time I looked at that monthly schedule and saw what I had to do for month, I'd loose my willingness to get out my warm bed and go on a cold treadmill. I mean, I could always do it tomorrow; but tomorrow never came.

Every weekend it was same story; I'd feel bad that I'd missed a week out of my routine and promise myself that this coming week, I'd get things done, but come Sunday, I'd again be apologizing to myself and promising that come next week, I'll start.

Now I'm usually able to get things done when I need to, but I've noticed that there are a few things that I have a hard time bringing myself to do especially when I need to do it consistently. I usually have good intentions; but good intentions alone never gets anything done.

Why does it seem that when we need to develop a good beneficial habit, that we struggle so much, while building bad habits are so easy.

Well, I've learned that some of bad habits that I had, usually are directly related to how I feel about them. Some of them make me feel good so I associate good feelings with them and that makes it easy do them.