We are a summation of our habits. Seriously, think about that for a second. Your day to day rituals are a series of habits strung together to form your actions, your thoughts and create your way of being. This is true for all the things that you do. Your habits set the tone for the beginning, middle and the end of the day.
What is a habit
Wikipedia identifies a habit as a settled or regular tendency or practice, often associated with something that is hard to give up. Habits form your day to day routine, and you are unconsciously rewarded for their competition in either a positive or negative way. Your habits begin from the moment that you wake up in the morning, they determine if you make your bed, when you brush your teeth, what you have for breakfast, when you have your coffee, how you have your coffee, etc.…
Author Charles Duhigg, in his book The Power of Habit, explains that every habit starts with a psychological pattern called a “habit loop”. The loop consists of a cue or trigger, routine and then reward. The trigger tells our brain to go into automatic mode. This can be something such as always reaching for a glass of water when you wake up or making a cup of coffee. It is a behavior that neuroscientists have discovered as being formed in the basal ganglia part of the brain. The drinking of the water first thing in the morning becomes the routine behavior without really making the decision to do it. The reward comes from the satisfaction of performing the habit, whether it be a good or bad one.
Good Habits and Bad habits.
Bad habits are a negative behavior pattern. Common bad habit examples include procrastination, fidgeting, overspending, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, poor sleep hygiene, stereotyping, gossips, bullying, and nail-biting.’ Many bad habits are harmless enough whilst others can have a deeper impact, potentially leading to addiction
Good habits are a behavior that are beneficial to one’s physical or mental health, often linked to a high level of disciple and self-control. Examples of good habits include regular exercise, consuming alcohol in moderation, eating a balanced diet.
Examine your day
Without assigning any positive or negative thoughts, take this moment to think about your day. Right now, you are likely in a state of transition. Literally, because some states around the county are already back to life in the “new normal” or like mine, slowing entering the initial phases from the stay home stay, safe orders. Or perhaps even physically after 70+ days of being in some sort of quarantine you have managed to create some new habits. Some of these habits maybe be beneficial to your life, whereas others are have become coping mechanisms to deal with the stressful times.
Life Aspirations
Now that you have identified some of your daily habits, do they align with the goals and achievements that you hope to accomplish in your life? It is important to remember only you can categorize them as a good or bad habit. Other people may have or formulate opinions on your habits but ultimately it is you that must decide. Owning your habits and the impact that they have on your life can be the steppingstone to make a change.
Breaking a Habit
There are ample suggestions on the internet on how to break a habit. But the ultimate key is identifying what the habit is and how it impacts you. Once that has been pinpointed the desire to make a change must also be there so that you can put a plan of action in place. Acknowledging your triggers and removing them can be helpful in moving away from your former routine.
Remembering that our daily routines are a series of habits therefore swapping a bad habit with a good habit can be effective way support your goals. This is often easier said than done. Breaking established and often ingrained habit takes time thus enrolling others in your plan, in addition to establishing positive rewards for adhering to the new habit sets you up for greater success. Changing up your routine may also be advantageous. While this may appear to be uncomfortable at first, the alteration to your daily routine may ease the new habit into existence. The final key to creating new habit is to keep it simple. Make your new habit clear, desirable, easy, and satisfying and your previous habit invisible, unpleasant, unattractive, and unsatisfying. If necessary, set yourself consequences for failure, making sure you have shared this with someone else so as not to let yourself off the punishment.
Real Life
Habitual cup of coffee
Since the social quarantine started in mid part of March, I have developed the habit of enjoying an extra cup of coffee to get me through my new morning routine as a semi-competent home schoolteacher. As a certified ATC and transformation coach I have never had the pleasure to teach young children, led alone my children, academics. I have previously left this to the professionals. Even though I am getting more sleep these days, the extra “perk me up” is something that I added one morning and kept up ever since. I get up, do my morning bath room ritual (use the restroom, have 2 cups of water, put in my contacts, wash my face, brush my teeth and comb my hair), I get dressed and then have a simple breakfast (oatmeal, chia seeds, protein powder, and egg whites) with my first cup of coffee. See how many habits I already have?? After that first cup is done, I brew my second one so that I can do client check ins and training sessions on-line before the kids wake up to start their school day. This has been my regular routine even before COVID-19 changed my life that only difference is that I was previously at a gym and morning started a lot earlier. My third cup of coffee has come about when I am about two hours into my scholastic instructing responsibilities. Like clockwork, my body starts actively craving a pick me up. I do not physically need it, I typically have plenty of energy at that time of the day, but I want it. Thus, the habit was born. I want to acknowledge that having three cups of coffee is not inherently bad. It is does not negatively affect others and I truly do enjoy the taste, but as with any good thing, too much coffee is a bad thing. Because of its caffeine content, too much coffee can cause high blood pressure, a precursor to heart disease, and can cause side effects like dizziness, shakiness, headache, or abnormal heartbeat. Reducing the internal stresses is important to my overall health and well-being so I personally choose to reduce my caffeine intake as a result. For some giving up this ritual might be a simple as ripping off a band-aid, but for me it took a little more planning. Limiting my caffeine intake to 2 cups was a good step in the right direction, so changing my habit was a matter of altering my personal routine. I still enjoy a cup off coffee first thing in the morning to start my day, but my second one has moved to that later time frame when I need a break/reward in my morning for all the patience I have exercised teaching. Between those two cups I have learned to enjoy several cups of hot water. This alternation to my routine has had some added benefits too. I am getting all my water in per day (I like to drink at least a gallon), I have reduced the amount of caffeine I am consuming, and I am still able to give myself a break in my day when I really need it. Now caffeine consumption may not be your concern, but you can see how making small, easy and pleasurable change can lead to new and better habits.
You Do You
Habits are a fundamental part of daily life. As a result, our habits and how we break them are individual to us. Though we often form them without realizing it, we do have the control and power to change them. In the famous words of John C. Maxwell, “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
