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Habits are powerful because they literally have an ‘unconscious’ mind of their own. Habits are created in the basal ganglia part of the brain, the “primitive” low-level part that is also responsible for emotions and pattern recognition. Habits are created by routines…. things we do every day, over and over, until we no longer need to think about what we are doing while we are doing it. Habits get hard-wired into the brain and then deploy even without conscious thought. Habits allow us to perform tiny, repeated tasks daily without having to mentally engage at all.
For example, men who shower, brush teeth, and shave every morning might do this without any conscious thought whatsoever. Some will even wear white dress shirts, black slacks, and black shoes to further habitualize their morning routine. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Apple founder Steve Jobs each chose to wear the exact same thing daily – Zuckerberg a gray t-shirt and Jobs a black turtleneck – to further reduce any conscious thought in their morning routine. Interestingly, Warren Buffet does the same by habitualizing his breakfast – a single Egg McMuffin from McDonalds and drinks coffee at the office. These extremely successful men understood the power of habits to keep them from wasting time on inconsequential tasks, allowing them to focus all of their attention on things that matter… achieving goals and moving their businesses forward. That shows how habits can be used for the good. And they can be leveraged to achieve goals.
However, habits can also be detrimental. If a habit derails a goal or short-circuits an objective from being realized, then the habit is destructive and gets labeled a “bad habit.” As John Rampton, who is a serial entrepreneur, visionary marketer, investor and startup enthusiast, put it, “Make no mistake about it. Bad habits are called ‘bad’ for a reason. They kill our productivity and creativity. They slow us down. They hold us back from achieving our goals. And they’re detrimental to our health.”
But, physiologically speaking, habits are neither good nor bad. They just are tasks that – through repetition — have created strong neural pathways in the brain. And, while they may not be useful to the person and might even be destructive, once created they can be very difficult to eliminate. So-called bad habits can be dampened and eventually eliminated but it requires systemic effort over time. Strategies and processes – a system — must be put in place that circumvent bad habits and build good habits in order to make progress. As James Clear explains in Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, “Success is not a goal to reach or a finish line to cross. It is a system to improve, an endless process to refine. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Last week, we looked at the first two steps in setting up a system that supports goals and breaks a bad habit that stands in the way. We used the fictional example of David, a workaholic whose family life was suffering from his absence. David’s goal was to better manage his time so he could get home in time for dinner with his family at least three nights a week. But keeping David from his goal was poor time management caused by too many text messages, emails and social media alerts. Here is a recap of steps 1 and 2 and what else David can do to stop being distracted by and wasting time on his phone.
Step 1. Recognize the Habit Triggers
He had to identify triggers that initiate the repeated behavior of the bad habit. Eliminating the trigger would hobble the habit. He replaced the old triggers – phone pings, dings, buzzes and notifications — with silence. He restructured his schedule to allow only 15 minutes, twice a day, to check emails, text messages and social media notifications. The silence allowed David to focus on his work uninterrupted and without distractions. David was able to be more productive and get work done faster. By avoiding all the triggers, the habit of looking at his phone a dozen times a day was weakened.
Step 2. Find an Accountability Partner
David also identified a trusted accountability partner to provide support when, unconsciously, he might revert to the bad habit. Using his community to dampen the bad habit further, David asked Esther, his coworker, text him a photo of his family each time she saw David scrolling on his phone. The photo was meant as a pleasant, gentle reminder that he needed to manage his time so he could have family time.
Step 3. Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness helps a person develop awareness around thoughts, feelings, and actions. This practice involves simply observing impulses that relate to an old habit without judging or reacting to it. The more aware of these routine behaviors and the triggers that lead to them, the easier it should become to consider other options, such as avoiding reminder cues or not acting on the urges. Mindfulness also helps in noticing ways old habit affects daily life. Recognizing these effects can help fuel the drive to break the old habit.
Step 4. Replace the habit with a different one
The easiest way to break an old habit is to replace it with something new. Use the power of habits to break one habit by replacing it with another, better habit. People who smoke, for example, might replace reaching for a cigarette after a meal with reaching for a stick of sugar-free gum or a mint.
In David’s example, he might replace reaching for the phone with reaching for his Daily Task List to check off what has been done and refocus on what else needs to be accomplished for the day in order to get home in time for dinner. As the new behavior is repeated, the unconscious impulse to follow the new routine develops over time. Eventually, the urge to keep doing this behavior will outweigh the desire to pursue the old habit. Putting that Task List on the phone’s Notes App, however, would not be a good idea as that might lead to seeing the notifications, alerts and other items that would trigger checking emails, text messages and social media accounts.
5. Use reminders to help with mindfulness
Use stickers, sticky notes, or other visual reminders where the habit behavior happens to help rethink any action that might trigger the bad habit. For someone wanting to avoid drinking soda, leaving a sticky note on the refrigerator that says “SODA IS BAD FOR YOU.” with a frowny face could serve as a reminder not to reach for a Coke. That person might also have phone alerts every two hours that says “DRINK WATER. IT’S GREAT FOR YOUR SKIN!”
In David’s case, he might have a sticky note that he sticks to the top of this phone that not only blocks the screen, but also says “FOCUS ON WORK.” It would not, however, be a good idea for him to use the phone to send a reminder to not check his phone.
6. Prepare for slipups
Breaking a habit can be a challenge. And, some habits easier to shake than others. People who try to break from an addiction have an even harder time stopping that type of habit because there is a physiological craving in addition to an ingrained habit. They often try, quit and try again. In fact, the American Cancer Society suggests that it takes smokers 8–10 quit attempts to finally quit for good. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests it takes 8–11 attempts before quitting permanently and other practitioners believe that it takes five to seven attempts.
But it can be very hard even for those who are just trying to stop a behavior that does not involve ingesting anything. Indeed, some habits can be addictive even when there is no chemical component. For example, excessive screen time — such as in the fictional example of David continually using and checking a cell phone — can be addictive and affect the person’s mental, social and physical health. According to the Mayo Clinic, “too much screen time has been linked to obesity, poor sleep or insomnia, behavioral problems including impulsive actions, loss of social skills, violence, less time for play, eye strain, neck and back problems, anxiety, depression, and difficulties with work or school.”
And it’s very easy to slip back into old patterns when new ones haven’t solidified yet. It takes a while to build up a habit, and it takes as much or even more time to break a habit. So it is important to mentally prepare for slipups in order to not feel guilty or discouraged when a slipup happens.
Learn from the slipup. Jot down three bullet points about how it felt doing the old habit. Be honest about what led to the set-back and consider whether any other change in the approach can help stay on track. Try to follow it up with some breathing and recommit to changing behavior.
Now that you have an outline of the major steps needed to get started, choose a habit you want to break that is interfering with a goal. Set up a plan, get the support, start a new habit in its place and set up reminders. Next week, we’ll look at what to do once you’ve started battling bad habits. Stay tuned.
Quote of the Week
“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.” Benjamin Franklin
© 2023, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
