Old Habits Die Hard
Habits shape us, and we shape them.
We learn a great deal of habits throughout our development into adulthood but we also often fall into bad habits because they serve a purpose for us.
We smoke to relieve stress, we drink to wind down from our day, we procrastinate to allow us more free time, we overeat because it reduces boredom, we press the snooze button because we tell ourselves 10 more minutes of sleep is a little luxury at the beginning of our day etc etc.
Which habit would you like to change? How could you shape it differently in order for it to serve you and your desires? Is there an entirely new habit you’d like to form? Regular exercise, keeping a tidier home, a healthy bedtime routine for instance?
Our thoughts can also become habits, and if they’re on the pessimistic side, this can be detrimental to our emotional wellbeing and limit our ability to do well and be happy and have hope for the future. If you’re telling yourself you can’t change, you are wrong. We all have the capacity for change.
The process of habit change (or habit creation) is a fairly straightforward concept. We discover what our ‘cues’ are (or we implement a new cue), we examine and alter our unhealthy routines (or devise new ones) and we identify (or create) our rewards.
In order for this to be successful, the reward must always be worth the action needed beforehand. We must crave it.
For example, if we want to stop smoking in order to save money, we must first of all increase the desire for saving money. We could work out exactly how much we will save, per week, per month, per year and decide exactly how we are going to spend it. Will it go into the holiday fund? Will it go towards a new car? Will you donate it to a charity close to your heart? Where will we save it? Can you hear the clink of change going into the pot as it gets fuller and fuller? When we focus on all the benefits of a desired goal, we have more reason to practice willpower when our old habits sneak up on us, i.e. the desired outcome will outweigh the brief benefit we currently get from smoking.
Additionally then, we also need to identify what triggers our need for a cigarette. Does smoking occur at set times of the day? Does it follow a meal? Does it occur when we are feeling particularly stressed? Do we only do it in the company of others? Do we do it prior to entering the workplace? Is it restricted to particular situations or places?
When we understand our cues, we can plan for them, we can ensure we have an alternative behaviour ready to replace our current one. If we smoke first thing in the morning, we could instead create a habit of making ourselves a coffee, if we smoke following a meal we could clean our teeth, if we smoke to reduce stress we can learn breathing exercises to help us relax, if we do it socially, we can deliberately gravitate towards non-smoking friends or colleagues etc.
Having a desired outcome as well as a plan will increase our chances of success and, when our cues become a trigger for healthy behaviours and our rewards become reality and we begin to feel good about ourselves and our new habits, they will quickly become the new normal for us and we will no longer need to think about them.
Now when we talk about old habits dying hard, we are generally talking about extreme triggers. With the example above, if we smoke to reduce stress and we have replaced this with relaxing breathing techniques, we may find that our old habits raise their heads if we are going through a particularly stressful period in our lives and the breathing techniques don’t offer quite enough to get us through. It is important to plan for this. It is important to solidify the benefits of not smoking so that if the temptation occurs, we still hold on to enough willpower to resist it.
Having an image in our heads of the holiday we are saving for or the car we are hoping to buy for instance will offer us something to distract ourselves with and help us find the strength to maintain our new habits. The more we put into these images using all of our senses the better.
Can you see the blue sea, hear the waves crashing, taste the cocktail, smell the salty air, feel the sand under your feet? Can you see the light gleaming off the paintwork of your new car? Hear the engine? Smell the leather? Feel the steering wheel in your hands? Can you imagine the sense of achievement you’ll feel when you get to that beach or drive that car away knowing it’s all down to you and your new healthy habits? If you’re doing this alongside your breathing techniques it will enhance your experience of eliminating the stress and increase your chances of successfully sticking to your new habits and achieving your goals.
We can apply these principals to all of our current routines, it’s worth taking some time to consider what habits you’re displaying on a day to day basis and whether these are working for you.
We have so much potential within us to do exactly what we want to do and be precisely who we want to be if we pay attention to our habits and spend some time taking control of them. Sometimes it’s a simple change in perspective.
What’s stopping you?!
