“Men’s
natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them.” – Confucius
Habits
can make or break you.
As Lucas Remmerswaal said, “First you
make your habits, then your habits make you!”
Habits
are our reflexive thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Our
behaviors are where the rubber meets the road. And, according to B.F.
Skinner, “Thoughts are behaviors we haven’t learned to observe yet.”
Who’s
better off? The person who knows more, or the person who has better
habits?
Think
about it. No matter how much you know, or how smart you are, it comes
down to what you actually do. For example, you can know all the
nutrition science in the world. But, what do you eat for breakfast,
lunch, and dinner? You can know all the positive psychology in the
world, but do you think the thoughts that serve you? Do you
cultivate the emotions that lift you?
Our
habits and practices turn insight into action. Most importantly, our
habits move us up the stack. We don’t have to waste our time
thinking through trivial things. And, they help us automate or simplify
complex things. After all, would you rather have a brain surgeon finding
his way through, or the seasoned brain surgeon whose habits help him glide
through the job?
Habits Govern What We Do and How Effectively We Do
It
Our
habits guide us. Meshorer writes: “Simply
put, habits are the supervisors of the actions we take and the actions we
avoid. They help govern what we do and how effectively we do it.
Bad habits can guide us off course and keep us from unearthing our deepest
layers.”
Good Habits Make Our Lives Easier
Habits
make our lives easier by automating our behaviors. Meshorer writes: “Habits
are thoughts, emotions, or actions that we’ve repeated frequently enough that they’ve
become reflexive behaviors, performed without conscious thought. They can
be good bad, or neutral. They are efficient bureaucrats of our body,
mind, and spirit: they don’t enact the internal laws that govern us, they
administer our choices as effectively as possible. Habits eliminate the
need to consciously think about and direct energy toward critical tasks.
Good habits make our lives easier. Bad habits hold our minds and
behaviors in a vice grip of negativity, acting as obstacles to our happiness.”
Habits are Learned Behaviors
Learning
a new habit is a thoughtful process. Repetition bakes our habits
in. Meshorer writes: “Habits
are learned behaviors. They aren’t inherited genetically. By
watching people inside MRI scanners, scientists can actually see new habits
being formed in the brain. They’ve observed that while we are first
learning a new behavior, the prefrontal cortex area of the brain lights
up. This is the most advanced part of our brain, where processes such as
reasoning, decision making, setting goals, and other cognitive functions are
carried out. As we become familiar with the task through repetition,
activity in the prefrontal cortex declines, but it increases in another part of
the brain, the basal ganglia. This is where our motor skills and other
processes that don’t require conscious thought reside.”
The next
time you find yourself doing something that starts to be repetitive, whether
it’s a thought, a feeling, or an action, ask yourself whether you really want
to make it a habit.
How
to change a habit
"A
habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step
at a time." – Mark
Twain
If you
want to change a habit and make it stick, it can be done definitely. It is like
saying, “where there’s a will there’s a way.”
There are so many techniques
that work, or at least improve your chances for success by changing your
habits.
When it
comes to change, stack the deck in your favor.
Steps to Change a Habit
Here are
the key steps for making your change happen:
- Step 1. Start with a
Compelling Why
- Step 2. Catch Yourself in
the Habit
- Step 3. Choose Your New
Response
Step 1. Start with a Compelling "Why"
Why do
you need to change to this new behavior? If you don’t feel you need to,
you aren’t going to do it. Meaningful change happens out of purpose or
pain, not convenience.
To bottom line it, if it’s not compelling, you won’t change. You need a strong, emotionally compelling
reason to make the change. Are you doing it for yourself? Are
you doing it for any other outside reason? Find the reason that gives you
the most inner strength. You’re going to need this during your trying
times and your moments of choice.
Change
doesn’t have to take forever. It is tough to just move away from a pattern.
Instead, have a replacement pattern that you want to implement.
Step 2. Catch Yourself in the Habit
There are
events in your day that trigger your habit. For example, may be it’s
every time you feel stressed, you reach for your habit to comfort you. It
might just be part of your routine. For example, maybe you’ve baked it
into your morning routine or when you come home at night. Make sure you
identify these triggers and events up front, so you recognize them when they
happen.
What’s
important is to know when it happens, so you can catch yourself. Catch
yourself in the moment, and pause. It’s these moments that you’re going
to introduce your chance to choose your new response.
Step 3. Choose Your New Response
As Nike
says, "Just do it." Implement your replacement pattern.
This is where it counts. The key thing here is that you’re choosing your
new response. This is where your compelling "Why" kicks
in. If it doesn’t invoke enough emotion for you, then it’s not compelling
enough.
The key
here is to make your new habit, feel good. You can do that by linking it
to good feelings, such as playing your favorite song. You can also think
the thoughts that serve you, such as "why" you’re making the
change. You can also focus on "how" you’re making the
change. Either way, you engage your mind and emotions to support
you. It’s a tag team.
Create Glide Paths to Make It Stick
Another
thing you can do here is create a glide-path for yourself. Make it easy
to fall into your new success pattern. Structure your success, whether
it’s visual cues or just making it easy to choose your new pattern. Do
this planning up front; don’t try to figure this out on the fly while you’re in
the thick of things.
Flex Your Attitude of Gratitude
One other
key here is to reward your behavior along the way. Flex your attitude of
gratitude and thank yourself for choosing your new pattern in your moment of
choice. Rewarding your behavior along the way versus promising yourself
some reward after the fact is the key to results. This will also
reinforce linking it to good feelings.
Don’t try
to "will" your way through it or suffer through it. The real
key is knowing that you move from intellectual to emotional to physical.
Once physical the new habit is firmly in place and the old one is gone for
good.
How To
Change a Habit with Agile Results
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is
what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryun
What if
you could change any habit or add a new one, what would you change?
The most
common questions for this are : “How can I change a habit?” Whether you
are trying to change a habit or add a new habit, it can be a real challenge and
a chore.
Change is
truly a challenge, especially when we’re talking about changing habits.
Overview
To
change a habit, you have to want to change, know how to change, and
practice the change until it sinks in. To effectively change a habit, it
helps to first know what can work against you.
Another
thing that can work against you is if you don’t give it enough time.
Think of building your new habit like carving out a new groove. It takes
a while to carve out a new path. It might take several days before your
change starts to stick and becomes more automatic. It also might take
time to figure out how to deal with your setbacks. You also have to
give yourself time go get over the humps along the way.
As Tony
Robbins says, “repetition is the mother of skill.” If you can make your
habit a daily routine that you can practice, you can get better faster.
The other key is to remind yourself that change feels awkward and it’s a phase
you’ll pass through before things start to feel natural. Allow for your
setbacks, and try again. Most importantly, acknowledge and appreciate
when you perform your habit, even if it does just feel like you’re going
through the motions. Going through the motions is often part of the
process that leads to deeper change.
Summary of Steps
- Step 1. Create a
Compelling “Why”
- Step 2. Pick something
specific to practice.
- Step 2. Make it a
theme for the month.
- Step 3. Use a 30 Day
Improvement Sprint.
- Step 5. Do it daily.
- Step 6. Make it one of
your Three Wins.
- Step 7. Use Friday
Reflection to review.
Step 1. Create a Compelling “Why”
One of
the supporting practices in Agile Results is Compelling “Why”. If you
start with “Why”, you give yourself something to fall back on, when you need
inspiration or motivation to get back on track.
Why do
you need to change to this new behavior? If you don’ feel you need to, you aren’t going to do
it. Meaningful change happens out of purpose or pain, not convenience.
To bottom line it, if it’s not compelling, you won’t change. You need a strong, emotionally compelling
reason to make the change. Are you doing it for yourself? Are you
doing it for any other external reasons? Find the reason that gives you
the most inner strength. You’re going to need this during your trying
times and your moments of choice.
Step 2. Pick Something Specific to Practice.
Change
doesn’t have to take forever. It is tough to just move away from a pattern. Instead, have a replacement pattern that you
want to implement.
By
picking something specific, you can practice and get better. Start
small. Pick something that’s easy for you to get
started. This will help you just start. The daily practice
will help you improve.
Step 3. Make it a Theme for the Month.
Create a
meaningful mantra that will inspire you throughout the month. Think
of the change that you want to achieve, and make it your theme for the
month. This theme will be a backdrop that helps remind you and get
you back on track when you lose focus. It will also help your month be
more meaningful.
Play
around and test what works for you, that makes sense for the change you want to
achieve. You can use your little mantra in those moments when you need it
most, in addition to your compelling “Why.”
Step 4. Use a 30 Day Improvement Sprint.
Do a
little every day for thirty days. One of the practices in Agile
Results is 30 Day Improvement Sprints. Use a 30 Day Improvement Sprint to
try something small each day to help you build your habit.
This is
all about stacking up the days of the month to get them on your side. You
might have a hard time each day achieving the change you want. Instead,
get the whole month on your side.
The small
changes will add up quickly. If something you try, doesn’t work, that’s
information that you can use to adjust your approach. By doing these
small experiments, and testing what works (and finding out what doesn’t),
you’ll continuously make progress towards your goal (even if sometimes it feels
like a step back.)
Step 5. Do it Daily.
The most
powerful thing you can do is setup a recurring calendar appointment and stick
to it. It’s actually easier to do something daily then it is to do
something every other day or every few days or periodically or when the moment
strikes. Doing it daily builds momentum, and it helps built the habit by
making it a routine, slowly at first, and then it gets easier as you go.
There are
two main ways to practice your habit:
- Recurring time each day. Pick a
specific time of day to practice. Actually put it on your
calendar, as a reminder and set a block of time so you make time for
it. In general, the earlier in the day, the better because you have
more control first thing in the morning. If you’re trying to build a
new habit, a powerful way is to pick a specific time of day to actually
practice it. If you can do it at the same time each day, that’s the
ideal, because you will help make it automatic.
- Response to a trigger. If the habit you
want to change is more event based, meaning it happens in response to an
event that triggers it, then identify the trigger or event. Identify
how you want to respond to the trigger. For example, what
specifically do you want your new behavior to be? Keep it
simple. Keep it actionable. Anchor it to the trigger:
“When X happens, I want to respond by doing Y.” For example, “When I
feel I’m reacting out of anger, I want to respond with compassion and
care, and choose my words more carefully.”
In both
cases, the idea is to have a specific behavior that you want to do.
On one of
my previous teams, the mantra was, “If it hurts, do it more.” The
idea was that it hurt because it was too hard to do, because of a lack of
practice or too much friction. By doing it daily, you would gradually
find ways to reduce the friction. So if we were learning a new way
to do things, we would do it daily so that the daily practice would get easier.
This way we could bite off a little each day, learn, and then try again.
Step 6. Make it One of Your Three Wins.
With
Agile Results, you focus on Three Wins: Three Wins for the day, Three
Wins for the week, Three Wins for the Month. Changing a habit is
worth calling out as one of your Three Wins:
- Three Wins for the Day. What is a win
for the day that would reflect that you achieved something regarding your
habit? For example, maybe one of your wins for the day is to have a
great work out.
- Three Wins for the Week. What is a win for
the week that would reflect that you achieved something regarding your
habit? For example, maybe one of your wins for the week is to make
every work out count.
- Three Wins for the Month. What is a win
for the month that would reflect that you achieved something regarding
your habit? For example, maybe one of your wins for the month is to
adopt a new exercise habit.
Having
wins at the day, week, and month gives you different zoom levels and
focus. It’s also a way to chunk up your progress, as well as divide and
conquer the problem. Your challenge for the day, might just be to show up
for your workout, while your challenge for the week might be to show progress
in a specific area.
Use your
“wins” as a way to add extra focus and attention. Make it
meaningful. If you’ve struggled in the past to actually start your
exercise routine, then it really is a win and acknowledge it as such.
Step 7. Use Friday Reflection to Review.
In Agile
Results, Friday Reflection is a chance to review the week. During the
review, you identify what’s going well and what to improve. You can
use Friday Reflection to take a step back and look at how your change is
working. You can then identify very specific and actionable ways to
improve. This is for you, and it’s your information, so the more
honest you are with yourself here, the better off you are. By being
honest with yourself about what’s working and what’s not, you can change your
approach. Changing your approach if it’s not working is the key to
success.
While it
can be tough to change a habit, you have a much better chance with the system
on your side. To keep trending in the right direction, rather than focus
on “success” or “failure”, focus on what you try, what you learn, and how you
improve.
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