Habits

I am sure many of us have spent time wondering about our habits. Why do they form? why cant I add good habits more easily? why do some habits negatively impact my life? why cant I change these bad ones more easily? am I a bad person because I cannot remove these bad habits from my life? etc. It is very easy to continue down this path of thought to a place of despair which can then trigger another one of the negative habits you wished you didn't have.

A better path does exist though, one of understanding what habits are and how they form, how we can change them, how we need to be vigilant to the events and environmental triggers which can cause unwanted behaviour to be repeated and how we can create a new environment and outlook to give ourselves the simplest way forward to behavioural change.

So, what are habits? they are usually defined as "Something that you do regularly, almost without thinking about it". Chances are you have already utilised a number of habits today and most of them have made your day substantially easier. Did you check your phone before you got out of bed or is your phone plugged in on the other side of the room so you jump out of bed ready for a cold shower? did you brush your teeth before or after a shower? what direction did you take to work or drop the kids at school? Did you try to remember how to drive the car again before backing out of the driveway?. These may all feel like they are deliberate actions and the result of a considered decision making process but many of them will be habits. Why and how do they form?

It is easy to see why we form habits if we consider how much effort it would take to go about our day if they didn't exist. Think about how long it would take to walk to the bathroom and then get dressed if we had to deliberately think how to stand up, walk without overbalancing or falling over, slowly rub our eyes, then brush our teeth etc if these behaviours didn't become automatic after we did them time and time again. The brain is constantly looking for ways to save energy and effort, just imagine the size of brain we would need if all of the basic behaviours we needed for survival did not have a way to become automatic.

When we learn or experience something new or decide upon a new routine our brain activity is elevated the whole time, we are constantly engaging the thinking part of our minds. Just remember the first time you went to a new school or first journey to a new job.. your conscious mind would have been filled with where do I need to go for maths? which underground line was it? how long would it all take? after doing these new journeys again and again they started to become automatic as the brain converts the sequence of actions into a routine - this process is called "chunking" and its the foundation of how new habits form. Over time your brain will recognise the cue such as walking into the underground station, decide upon the information available such as it looks like the last X times this journey has been done and then decide to invoke the automatic response of taking the usual escalator to the usual platform to stand in the usual place in the train. and so on. This habit gradually forms, your body isn't able to decide if it is a good or bad habit it just wants to conserve some energy and will try to make this regular routine as automatic as possible.. If something doesn't seem right the conscious mind will be activated to decide what to do, for example a longer than usual queue.

Many of you will have had your own battle with habits you believed were bad and wished you could change or you will have felt frustration with good ones which were harder to keep up or which an unexpected crisis put and end to. As we saw above an action repeated over and over becomes a habit and the level of brain activity moves from being elevated the entire time something new is experienced to only being elevated when the cue is triggered and the reward is obtained. This spike in brain activity can also move from being when the reward is obtained to being in anticipation of the reward so our body then craves the reward more strongly. This tends to be the case when we look at habits that people would often like to change where a positive feeling or welcome emotional change has been encountered often before. See someone else having a beer, start to crave one, automatically seek out an opportunity to drink, see a sign for a drive through when you are feeling a little peckish or the kids see it and suggest a burger, the feeling of food or gratitude or both is then craved and the routine kicks in. Once habits form they will lurk forever, just waiting for the right triggers. Without deliberate action to counter the habit loop above it will continue and become harder to change. Cue -> Routine -> Reward

Why is it hard to change the behaviour or routine? well it takes effort to stay present enough during a typical day to fight all of the usual triggers you will encounter. We are surrounded by triggers to keep us in the old routine and many more lurk to knock us into more frequent repetitions of the ones we would like to change. Takeaway used to be once a month, then once a week and now twice a week? Why is that? are you a worse person than a short while ago or are stress levels higher than normal and you are watching more TV with all those adverts for tasty takeaways. See advert or feel in need of the brief emotional pick up = cue, then drive to takeaway or click on the app = routine, eat takeaway = reward.

These cues will remain and the reward or feeling will be craved, the one thing you can change is a routine. It is simple to say but it will require hard work until it becomes a more dominant habit than the one it is replacing. If you normally reach for the ice cream after a stressful day or log in to social media to feel worse about yourself after a bad at work then make a note how often you feel like this, write it down, how often this week, last week etc.. often just doing this will reduce the frequency of occurrence. Also think about a new routine to insert, set the running shoes and kit out as you leave for work (or another day of home-schooling..) with a vow to do a workout if you feel stressed out at the end of the day. Think of the feeling of accomplishment you will feel when its done. Cue / stress -> new routine / workout -> reward / increased self belief / positive feeling. Sounds simple, because it is.. its certainly not easy though.

It can often help to view your environment as the opposing team and always trying to remain vigilant of the modes of attack and your likely vulnerabilities. If you are usually rude to colleagues before a review with your boss why not make them aware of the upcoming review and apologise in advance? If you are not sleeping well enough due to too much time on your phone late in the evening then buy an alarm clock and leave the phone somewhere other than your bedroom. Just being able to do these new routines once or twice can often be the spark to light the self belief fire and ensure consistency and ultimately routine replacement.

Overconfidence and lack of awareness of the variability of motivation can also make things difficult. Most habit and lifestyle changes don't fail because of the days you are perfectly motivated, those days are relatively easy, they fail or get pushed back to tomorrow, then the next day then never because of the tough days where motivation is gone, when the willpower muscle is exhausted from the flat car tyre, dog eating homework, missing out on that promotion etc. These are the days that being mindful, watching yourself from 30,000ft and writing your own routine in advance to deal with the challenges you can see approaching is key. If you try and fail that's ok, just keep trying and failing better next time.

Which systems work well for particularly ingrained behaviour change? Different things will work for different people and many will hope for an epiphany to suddenly change an unwanted habit but there are systems out there such as the 12 step programmes which have been incredibly successful in changing the habits of people with a variety of serious problems. Careful work is undertaken in these programmes to identify the cues and rewards that encourage alcoholic or other addictive habits and then new routines and safety nets are inserted. People will replace the routine of going drinking to forget about their troubles with the routine of regular meetings with others facing and overcoming the same feelings and the relationship with a sponsor who has successfully been through it. They can then work to carefully identify all the triggers that have been holding back change for as long as they can remember. Belief in the process is key to its chances of success.

Sometimes people do need the help of a friend, group or sponsor so that they feel like they are not alone in tackling the problem at hand, others need to see themselves change in the eyes of others before they believe it and that feeling of appreciation and value can help with the drive to form that new habit or replace an old routine. Find that someone or group, a trusted best friend or someone completely outside your usual group or a mentor or coach.

Can we build new habits? of course, using the same methods as initially described above. Find a simple and obvious cue, define the rewards and design the routine. Belief in the process and awareness that willpower is a muscle that can fatigue no matter how hard it is trained are vital. Knowing and embracing that there are going to be triggers you did not see coming and days when it seems your environment is at war with all of your hopes and dreams will give you the best chance of keeping with the new plan. Each obstacle you overcome will give you more confidence for the next one.

We don't need to wait for an epiphany to change. We know change can happen and we have seen people we know transform their lives. Alcoholics can stop drinking, smokers can quit, you can stop biting your nails, you can stop getting too nervous to ask your boss for an opportunity to perform at a higher level, you can stop yelling at your kids or yourself after a long day, you can make that first serve on match point, believe you can beat the team you always seem to lose to. Change can begin now.

"I shouldn't need help, I am an overachiever, top performing trader, salesperson, sports professional whatever".. none of us are immune to the power of habits, we are not immune to errors of thought and of planning and we are not immune to the powers of honest self appraisal and to the power of help when you need it.

As I have alluded to already worthwhile behavioural change is hard to do. It is hard to do in the perfect world we plan to encounter along the way but significantly harder in the imperfect world we live in surrounded by personal and environmental triggers seemingly perfectly designed to knock us off course. Focus on moving in the right direction. There is good news. It does not have to be complicated and can be far simpler than you imagine. Simple yes, easy no. Embrace the challenge.

Do you want to change some habits? build new ones? whether in your business, health, personal life.. lets do it. Lets try some honesty box coaching. For the first 5 people to respond to this asking for help you can decide what you pay once a habit has been changed.. if the habit you would like to change hasn't been improved satisfactorily then no need to pay anything.