"Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change." - Jim Rohn
Bad habits. We all have them. Some sort of habit that just isn't serving us, yet we keep on doing it. Somehow it's satisfying a need or a craving, even if we know we really don't need it. All the same, we feel better when we complete the act. Until (sometimes only seconds later) we don't feel better. Almost instantly, in my case at least, I'll feel disappointment in myself and tell myself so. "You did it again. Why can't you just stop doing it, you know you'd be happier if you did!" So why do we go through this cycle again and again?
First, it's worth exploring the science behind habits more closely. In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg talks about something called 'The Habit Loop.' Habits are repeated behaviours driven by a process in our brain that consists of a three step loop:
Cue (a trigger or a reminder that sets your brain into automatic mode and sets off an action)
Routine (the habit itself)
Reward (this tells your brain, "That was great, we'll do that again!")
The cue could be as simple as your alarm going off in the morning. In my case, this triggers me to hit the snooze button, and rewards me with more time in bed. Great, right? Except it results in me having less time to get ready in the morning and then I'm annoyed I didn't have time to do something nice for myself like journal or meditate. So the reward part in my case only lasts while I'm in bed and turns into nothing but disappointment for the rest of the day.
Habits are nothing more than simple behaviours that we do on a daily basis. Some benefit our health and wellbeing, others are ones we would like to change. And they can be changed. That's the key word here, changed - not stopped. Our brain hardwires everything and our hardwiring drives automatic perception, so once it hardwires a habitual action, it's there in our brains for good. We can, however, make new wiring and CHANGE the habitual behaviour. First the change comes from understanding our cues. What is the trigger that sets off our behaviour? For me, it's the alarm clock going off. When you understand this, think about your habitual behaviour, your routine action. This is when I hit snooze. That cue will always be there for me, at least it will until retirement comes along, so it's worth changing the habitual action now! So I could say 'I will turn off the alarm and get up first thing', 'I will only press snooze once and then get up' (please don't ask me how many times I press it). It's that simple. Putting it into practice? Not so simple. But setting a simple Implementation Intention (more on these in my next blog) is the starting point I need. "Implementation Intentions are simple self-regulatory strategies in the form of an 'if... then...' plan." (Wikipedia explanation) "If I hear my alarm clock go off, then I will turn it off and get straight up." This may sound too easy and of course putting it into motion is the hard part, but once you do it and experience the new reward, you will see how much better it serves you and your wellbeing and you will want to do it again. My reward will be having time to sit in the beautiful morning silence of my home with a coffee, or to meditate for ten minutes before work, or to journal for ten minutes. Starting my day off well will also have a knock on effect on the rest of my day.
Having a coach can be a game changer in new habit formation. A coach facilitates positive thinking in order to effect a desired change. Not to mention having someone to be accountable to. Accountability is a powerful tool in helping you to reach your goals. If you don't have a coach tell someone close to you and be accountable to them.
There are some helpful steps you can take to positively begin your new habit formation and set yourself up for success.
Share it - talk to your sibling, your friend or a colleague and say, 'from now on I'm going to do things this way.' Better yet, turn them into an accountability buddy and ask them to check in on your progress every now and then.
Schedule a reminder - you have figured out what your cues are and lots of these will happen at the same time. Set a reminder on your phone just before you know your cue will kick in.
Replace bad habits with good ones - your cue might not be so time based and then it can help to work with your Implementation Intention. If you always reach for an unhealthy snack when you feel peckish, then write down or tell yourself or your coach or accountability buddy, "If I feel peckish, then I will reach for some fruit."
Set yourself up for success - if you always reach for junk food because it's closer to your desk than the fruit bowl, then move things around. A study on people who moved a bowl of sweets just slightly out of arms reach showed they were far less likely to eat them then when the bowl was within reach. So make it easy for yourself.
Write it down - some habits might take some more exploration. Write down answers to questions to help you fully investigate what's going on. When do I feel the trigger? What do I get from the reward? What is the craving I'm really after? Then it can help to write down your intentions.
Set boundaries - Set yourself up with a specific set of rules. (e.g. I will only check my phone on my lunch break and on my commute, not during work or when I get home.) Rewriting your rules makes it more firm, 'I won't' is a promise to yourself which you can break. Setting up rules changes 'I won't' to 'I can't.'
Start off small - when I wanted to create a regular yoga routine I decided I'd do at least 30 minutes 5 times a week and then found I was never doing any yoga at all. I worked with a coach who made me realise I was putting too much pressure on myself. It wasn't realistic that I would instantly practice 30-60 minutes of yoga 5 times a week with all of my other commitments. In order to feel the reward of being pleased that I did yoga at home and being in a calmer space, we agreed I would commit to ten minutes of yoga once a week. I wanted to go for more, but she encouraged me to start off small. This slowly built up and it did take longer than I thought to get to a place where I was practicing for longer and more frequently. That is the power of habit, the more you reap the rewards, the more you want to experience that feeling.
Give it time - James Clear, author of Atomic Habits and habit coach says it takes on average 66 days for a behaviour to become automatic. Some say it takes 21 days to form the new habit and the rest to really embed it. The truth is it varies - how long it takes a new habit to form depends on the behaviour, the person, and the circumstances.
This is all over to you now. It's your decision whether you choose to work with a coach to help you set yourself up for success, or whether you think you can go it alone. Either way, you can change your habits if you decide to put in the effort. Our lives are built around habitual actions and routines, so make them positive ones and boost your wellbeing at the same time.
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