HABITS.........AND HOW TO EASILY IMPROVE THEM

Why habits are so helpful.

Did you know that around 45% of what we do every day is done out of habit? This means that half of the time we are awake is spent with automatic behaviours. Or, put another way, we spend 1 out of every 2 minutes doing something that requires very little cognitive or emotional effort from us.

Habits are actions and activities weaved into the fabric of our daily lives as a consequence of well-trodden neural pathways in our brains. Habits, by their very nature, require very little willpower because they’re just what we do.

Let me ask you a quick question, did you manage to dress yourself today? I suspect you answered yes, but did you stop to consider the process, how you were doing the task, whether there was a better, quicker, or more effective way? Did you stop and consciously decide whether to put your feet in first or arms? Left foot, or right foot first? Or did you just get on with it in your old habitual way whilst busily thinking of something completely unrelated, such as other things you need to remember to do in the day ahead? Most of us just get on with it and use the time and mind space to think of more pressing or interesting things - getting dressed, like so many other things, has become an automatic behaviour; a habit.

Habits and automatic behaviours are one of the best ways for our brain to save energy, if we had to re-think every single task, especially simple ones such as getting dressed, pouring a bowl of cereal, making a cup of tea, or driving our normal route to work, then our brain would probably implode by lunchtime. So habits are not just useful, they are vital.

The problem comes when some of those habit behaviours are self-sabotaging and unhelpful. This is the time of year when many of us are consciously trying to improve or stop some those unhelpful behaviours and replace them with more helpful and self-supporting habits. We need to build new neural pathways and strengthen them so the new habits takeover the old habits.

This takes time, practice and patience. First, bear in mind that human beings don’t do things for no reason, there is always a reason behind why you do what you do even when you wish you would do something different. Consider what reward you’re receiving from the self-sabotaging behaviour? This may seem a strange question but a ‘reward’ is not always the addition of something pleasant, often it’s the reduction of something unpleasant. Perhaps you are trying to quit smoking or avoid comfort eating, for example. First, dig deep and work out what you are getting from the habit? Is it a habit behaviour that you feel brings you some comfort when you are very anxious or helps to lower your stress? Simply trying to stop a bad habit can be very difficult but our success at giving up the ‘bad’ habit is greatly increased if we take steps to replace the habit with a self-supporting habit - one that brings the same, or even greater, benefits than the old, self-sabotaging behaviour.

Our brain pays very close attention to reward and punishments and if it perceives reward as a result of our new behaviour, then it marks that routine as something that’s worth repeating. Leading authority on habit change and author of Atomic Habits, James Clear, explains that the key to building a good habit is to create the belief that an action is worth repeating by associating these habits with attractive rewards and positive feelings. On the other hand, if you want to break a bad habit, play up the negatives and bad feelings to make the habit unattractive.

Furthermore, humans generally take the path of least resistance. With this in mind, do everything you can to make the desired behaviour easy and much more likely to happen. Remove as much temptation as you can to slip back into your old behaviours. At the same time, make your self sabotaging behaviours hard to do. For example, if you are trying to eat a healthier diet, remove all of the unhealthy, tempting snacks from the house and have the fridge, cupboards and fruit bowl full of attractive, easily prepared and healthy foods - even go as far as chopping up the raw carrots, cucumber and peppers ready for your snack tomorrow to further increase the chances of you reaching for those. Similarly, if you are trying to stop a behaviour make it harder or more inconvenient. For example, if you are attempting to reduce the amount of time you spend on social media, leave your phone upstairs whilst you are downstairs, and vice versa. If you are trying to go on a run/walk or cycle ride first thing in the morning, have your kit set out by your bedside the night before, so it is very quick and simple to get ready for the activity, and so on.

The 4 Laws For Building/Breaking Habits - Atomic Habits by James Clear

James Clear says: “The trajectory of your life bends in the direction of your habits.” Here are his 4 laws for building/breaking habits.

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For further information or to contact Dawn, visit www.milestone-coaching.co.uk