Developing those habits

How are you coming
with your new habits?
Did you take my advice to take advantage of
the context change of September?

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
from the Habits, Decision, Attention Series

Autumn Attempts tend to stick

©Phillip Martin, artist/educator

In my last Habits article I talked about taking advantage of context change to jump start the habit-change and habit-building process.

I also disclosed that September is one of the best times to begin the year anew.

Since most of us have 12 to 18 years of school-starts in our background, we are primed for change and growth as the leaves begin to turn.

By understanding the process of habit formation, it is possible to develop systems in your life BEFORE you reach the point where you flake out on yourself, jettison the attempt to build a new habit or three, and conclude that nothing you try will ever work for you.

• I hope you took the time to answer the questions at the end of the prior post (repeated below for those of you who did not) because that information will be helpful as we move forward.
• If you follow along as the Series continues to develop — and actually DO the exercises suggested — by next September you just might have a brand new life.

©Phillip Martin, artist/educator

October is not too late!

It’s still fall, and the crisp weather will still promote the ease of change if you start now — before winter arrives, signaling your brain that you blew it again, making change more difficult than it needs to be.

Since science now believes they know why habits develop, how they change, and how to build and rebuild them to our exact specifications, we can use that information to change just about anything we want.

We can, that is, as long as we understand what they know about how it all works — how patterns and pattern-recognition impact the the human brain.

If we work WITH our brain instead of against it, it is possible for any one of us to transform our entire lives through the power of brain-based habit formation.

• What might be possible in YOUR life if you understood the neurology as well as the psychology of habits and the way patterns work within our lives, businesses, and social groups?
• What if you understood how to apply the brain-based information you’ve read here on ADDandSoMuchMore.com (to counter some of the old-school, out of date, “standard” advice about motivation and habit formation that’s been around for decades) — so that you could tweak the information that dominates the info-market to make it all work for YOU?

Take a moment to really think about it:

What might your life look like one short year from now if you actually applied what you learned here, step by step?

• Would you be healthier?  Wealthier?  Happier with your marriage and family life?
• Would you finally find the time to write that novel, or start that new business, or to take the necessary steps to move into that lakeside house you’ve always dreamed about?
• What WOULD you do, tweaking the old expression slightly, if you understood how to set it up so that you could not fail?

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Gettin’ busy with the HABIT habit

Let’s define our terms again:

Have any bad habits?

For purposes of this article, let’s define a “bad habit” as any habit that does NOT take you in the direction you want to travel.

Pick one – any one – and play along. It is actually easier to understand habit formation when we focus on the ones we wish we didn’t have first!

For anything we do repeatedly, something always acts as a trigger that leads to our next action — which leads us right into the habit we’re trying to jettison, whether we realize it consciously or not.  The habit gurus refer to that trigger as a CUE.

For Example:
Possible cues for some bad habits that make it tough to lose those last ten pounds or so for that High School reunion coming up in only ten weeks:

Source: Classroom Clipart HERE

• When you step into a movie theatre, does the smell of the popcorn cue your hankering – and while you are at the counter do you find you can’t resist ordering a large Coke and a box of Milk Duds, and maybe one of those movie-sized Snickers?  Can you even watch a movie without popcorn?
• Has getting off work become a cue for stopping off at the local hang for a chance to unwind with a bit of social time over a couple of cold ones? Does popping open a brewski also serve as a cue for ordering some fries, chips, or other greasy goodies?
• Do you “taste” your way through half a meal’s worth of calories while you’re cooking and then sit down to a full dinner with your family?
• When the kids leave half a pork chop or part of a sandwich, is that your cue for mindlessly finishing it yourself, maybe because you tell yourself you hate to see food wasted?

How many times have you repeated an action like any of those above — something you swore to yourself you’d change, but somehow it remains to haunt you?

Don’t split hairs here!  None of those habits may speak to you, and losing a few pounds may not be on your list of goals, but the underlying principles and techniques remain the same.

If you want to change a habit you have TWO choices:

1. 1. Get RID of the cue, or
   2. LINK the cue to a different action.

Changing what you DO

Using the example above, if you are absolutely serious about looking great at your next reunion, the simplest way to keep from activating your bad habits is to stay away from your cues entirely until the pounds are gone and the reunion is over.

No movies, working overtime so you have to hurry home and don’t have time to stop at your hang-out with the rest of the gang, getting someone else to cook and clean up — those are a few ways to get rid of the excess calorie cues above.

For most of us, however, that isn’t the most realistic way to handle things – even impossible in some cases. Nor is it the most effective way. Assuming you could remove those cues until the reunion is over, what happens afterwards?

Yep, you put those pounds right back on.

So let’s move on to choice number two: linking the cue to a new action.

UNLEARNING and Relearning

The latest research indicates that habits are ingrained in a part of the brain called the basil ganglia, so effectively they might as well be hard-wired. We keep acting in accordance with them even when they are in direct opposition to what we say we want.

Apparently, unlinking – extinguishing a habitual response – is a process our brain resists mightily.  Once we have trained our brains to respond to a cue, it happens automatically, meaning below the level of conscious awareness.

Found HERE

• When we encounter one of our habit cues, we respond as readily as Pavlov’s dogs salivate at the ringing of that bell that cued the food reward.
• Unless, that is, we link something else to the cue – and, most importantly – repeat it often enough that it becomes a HABIT.
• When we actively and repeatedly follow an old cue with a new action we create a new habit.

Over time, our brain creates new neurological pathways that allow us to more easily use the new response again because it requires less energy than recalling the old – eventually.

Related Post: Putting things on Autopilot gets more DONE

Bottom Line: the most effective way to change your habits is to REPLACE them with new ones.  Just don’t expect it to be easy and don’t expect it to happen overnight.

Questions for Notebook Noodling:

Review and catch-up

1. What bad habits would you like to DE-activate this year? 
2. What new habits would you like to put in place?
3. RATE each of them!
   How confident are you, on a scale of 1-10, that you will be able to change what’s going on NOW?
4. Revisit your first instinct
   What would it take to improve your projection by one measly point? How about two points? Take the question seriously, and be specific. Really! What would it take?

And two MORE for today’s post:

• Identify your Cues
  Make a short list of your most “troubling” habits and take a stab at identifying the cues
• Identify what you want INSTEAD
  For each item on your list, instead of focusing on what you DO, write a sentence or two of what you want to do, stated as if it were already your new habit.
  Examples:
  – I handle the laundry so it never becomes a mountain.
  – I get in bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep almost every night.
  – I eat for health and take the time to prepare nutritious meals that entice me.

Coming Soon

In the next article we’ll tackle some ways to link new actions to your existing cues that will, step by step, take you in the direction of what you want instead.

So STAY TUNED –
and take some time to tackle those questions I just asked.

You can’t expect to get the benefit if you don’t do the work — and the best way to work with yourself is on PAPER.  Trust me on that one.

And get in touch if you’d like some one-on-one professional help with sherlocking trouble spots and setting up systems, along with some accountability support during the time you are making things a habit. I still have a few openings in my coaching schedule, and I’d LOVE to be your coach.

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(reblogs always okay, and much appreciated)

Shared on the Senior Salon

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IN ANY CASE, do stay tuned.
There’s a lot to know, a lot here already, and a lot more to come – in this Series and in others.
Get it here while it’s still free for the taking.

Want to work directly with me? If you’d like some coaching help with anything that came up while you were reading this Series (one-on-one couples or group), click HERE for Brain-based Coaching with mgh, with a contact form at its end (or click the E-me link on the menubar at the top of every page). Fill out the form, submit, and an email SOS is on its way to me; we’ll schedule a call to talk about what you need. I’ll get back to you ASAP (accent on the “P”ossible!)

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You might also be interested in some of the following articles
available right now – on this site and elsewhere.

For links in context: run your cursor over the article above and the dark grey links will turn dark red;
(subtle, so they don’t pull focus while you read, but you can find them to click when you’re ready for them)
— and check out the links to other Related Content in each of the articles themselves —

COACHING LINKS at end of all posts

• Brain-based Coaching with Madelyn Griffith-Haynie
• Brain-based Coaching Fees & Formats
• The Group Coaching LinkList – explaining how this format works

Related articles on ADDandSoMuchMore.com

• ABOUT Activation
• Lowering Activation Costs
• TaskMaster – Getting Things DONE!
• Getting off the couch & getting going – Part 1

Other supports for this article

A Few LinkLists by Category
(to articles by topic on ADDandSoMuchMore.com)

• Back from Boggle™ Series
• Time & Time Management articles
• The Transition Tamer™ Series
• The Stuff and Nonsense™ Series (clutter management)

• The HABITS, Decision, Attention LinkList (where you can click to read them all in order, or jump right to the ones that inspire interest – ongoing updates)
• The Optimal Functioning (Challenges) Series of articles
  (about the Inventory & articles from each category)

Related Articles ’round the net

• Top Tips to Tackle Your Bad Habit Forever
• Swap this with that
• Improve your Eating Habits
• Basics Baby: How to curb your spending desires (makeup and more)
• Are you a Slave to Routine or the Master of Your Choice?
• Some Bad Habits That Tend To Wrinkle
• 10 Essential Positive Habits for Positive Living

BY THE WAY: Since ADDandSoMuchMore.com is an Evergreen site, I revisit all my content periodically to update links — when you link back, like, follow or comment, you STAY on the page. When you do not, you run a high risk of getting replaced by a site with a more generous come-from.