I'm 72 and still form new habits — and break others. Making promises to others doesn't work for me, but these 5 things do.

Getty Images

When I was a teenager, I developed a habit of repeatedly promising my mother I would go on a diet. It started years of power struggles; on the one hand, I wanted to make her happy, but on the other, a deeper part of me knew that what I weighed was my business and not hers. Trying to both please her and be true to myself, I ended up in the no-win position of promising her I'd diet and then sabotaging it.