July 6, 2009
Habits
I had the priviledge of picking the mind of the CEO of a security company last week in regards to habits, and he offered me some words of wisdom on the subject.
”1. Habits either serve us or hurt us. They are little programs that help us navigate through life on ‘auto-pilot’ so that we can focus on other things a little more productively. Most habits are nothing more than reinforced patterns of behavior that operate at a subconscious level.”
I’ve often described myself as a slave to my patterns; doing the same thing day by day because its ‘what I do and who I am’. The auto-pilot metaphor is more eye-opening however as to the true problem of doing without thinking. Habits are not bad by definition, but bad ones allowed to run rampant are.
”2. Interestingly, what we define as a good or bad habit is often driven by societal paradigms. Hence, exercise, eating healthy, drinking, smoking, taking drugs, etc. are all labeled as good or bad. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether they serve us or not. In short, be mindful of why you want to form or break a habit in the first place. Is it because YOU think you should or because you believe someone else thinks you should?”
I am good at recognizing bad habits in myself when I take the time to identify them. Taking that time is however, yet another bad habit.
”3. You don’t break habits. This may sound crazy but you have to look at the biological underpinnings of a habit. Neurologically speaking, we program habits into our nervous system and then reinforce them through a process called myelinization. Read Daniel Coyle’s book ‘The Talent Code’ and you’ll get a sense for what I’m talking about. With this in mind, you can think of a habit as something that you’ve constructed through repetitive action. You don’t just go in and wipe out a biological code that you took time to create. This is one of the reasons why people say they can’t ‘break’ a habit. Willpower doesn’t rewrite code that you’ve invested days, weeks, months or years writing and reinforcing.
4. You have to ‘Replace’ a habit with something else. In other words, write a new biological code. When I decided to become a triathlete 12 months ago I weighed 35 pounds more than I do now and didn’t do any type of physical activity. I had to rewrite the code which was to get up late, eat doughnuts and lounge around. I needed a new code, a new habit. The new code I wrote was to get up at 4:30A and work out every day, eat right, etc. At that point I’m wiring a new set of instructions.”
The notion to replace habits instead of quitting is a concept I have not heard of very much. In everything from drinking to smoking to procrastination everyone always wants you to quit, whether 12 stepper or cold turkey, quitting was always the answer. Its been one of my stinking points however, when I decide I’m going to quit something, that particular time of day comes around again the next day and then what? More than once it took only a day before an old habit came right back. My biggest issue is remembering I even quit the habit but I in part think that’s related to the fact that I did not have anything lined up to replace the old habits timetable and so boredom, a not busy mind, and discomfort brings back ol’ faithful, the bad habit.
”5. The underpinning of the new habit formation has to be a personal vision that you choose for yourself. You have to decide who you are in your mind’s eye irrespective of where you are today. For me, I said ‘I am a triathlete’.”
”6. The interesting thing is that forming new habits has less to do with something you ‘Do’ and opposed to ‘Someone you Are’. So what do I mean by this? You have roles in your life that you don’t question. For instance, it might be father, friend, employee, etc. You don’t question the fact that it’s ‘Just Who You Are’. You do things in keeping with those roles regardless of how you feel. This is why feelings are so unreliable when it comes to forming a new habit. At some point you have to decide that being a healthy person or whatever it may be is just who you are. Then, you go to work building a new set of instructions. Once they are built and on auto-pilot you move onto another one.”
This also is a stopping point for me, as I cannot seem to pin down exactly what I want for myself. I know the big things, sure, the family, house, vacations, all that jazz, but who am I and what will I be doing with the rest of my life besides running on auto-pilot? It’s plagued me for years, the sense that I’m moving forward, but with no goal you have no way to monitor progress or even be happy about whatever progress you may have had.
How should this whole process work?
I spent this 4th of July weekend at the house with the wife and son. Very low-key weekend, did some cleaning, cuddling on the couch and plenty of soulsearching, an exhausting amount of soulsearching. With a plan to start an at home business in August and needing to get my health back under control so I can be here for my son for as long as possible alot of things come to light. But where do you begin?
I plan on starting with identifying any daily process that needs changing or even elimination. Take that list and simultaneously come up with a list of processes that need to be added. Theoretically, this new daily schedule (or weekly, however you need it) should be a snapshot of a good week for you, where all your requirements are met, plenty of time for yourself as well as appropriate amounts for friends and family. Too rigid a schedule can be counterproductive so care needs to be taken to not go beyond the reasonable.
And thank you @MarkOOakes, for your time and inspiration for this post!
Filed by jclements at 3:35 pm under Family, List, blog
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). When a friend of mine picked me up from the holding cell the next morning, first place we went…was to a bar. They were not good times to say the least. No one really knew though, because everyone either was part of the problem (my drinking buddies) or I didn’t feel close enough of comfortable enough sharing my problems.