HOW TO BUILD A NEW HABIT? FIND OUT!

Consistency is difficult for everyone. In fact, the majority of my online and in-personal clients cite “being consistent” as their number one goal when we begin training. In an effort to motivate my clients and anyone wanting to change their habits or implement a completely new habit, I’ve found a very interesting and informative article regarding habit building. This blog post delves into the article and provides you with a helpful tip to build a new habit!

Source: All quotations and information referenced from “Habits - A Repeat Performance”

MONKEYS

The article cites an interesting monkey experiment where a light is activated, the monkey pulls on a lever, and it is rewarded with a treat. The consumption of this treat elicits the release of a happy-feeling neurotransmitter called dopamine. The monkey is feeling good, real good. Over time, the monkey pulls the lever when the light is activated but no treat is provided. However, the monkey still gets a flood of dopamine even without the treat. This means that the monkey is receiving the neurotransmitter from the light now and not the treat. What does this mean? This means that the CONTEXT or ENVIRONMENT is now prompting the monkey to perform an action and it is receiving a learned reward -

“environmental cues can acquire motivational value.”

The article goes on to say the following:

“Contributing further to the rigidity of habits, neural evidence indicates that, with repetition, whole sequences of responses become chunked or integrated in memory with the contexts that predict them.”

In other words, our environment or context we find ourselves in may prompt our actions. These actions or responses are completed in the way we’ve remembered doing them in the past. This is how we form habits or rituals.

EXAMPLE

To put it simply, I’ll use a personal example. I HAVE to take out my contacts at night or else I suffer the consequences of painful dry eyes in the morning. On the flip side, I don’t HAVE to brush my teeth at night. Is it gross? Yes, but I don’t immediately feel there’s a consequence. Fortunately for me and society at large, I do end up brushing my teeth at night most of the time because it became part of my routine. I’m already in the bathroom, my toothbrush is right there, so might as well take out my contacts and then brush my teeth. I’ve noticed on rare days when I wear my glasses, there is a higher chance that I’ll skip a night time teeth brushing but not always. I don’t like brushing my teeth at night but I still do it most of the time when I’m wearing glasses because I’ve integrated this new habit into my night time routine.

APPLY CONTEXT TO CHANGE YOUR HABIT

If you are trying to implement a new habit, find a way to INTEGRATE a new habit into your current schema. This will be challenging because as we learned, we may be doing the next action because of the previous action, not necessarily because we are actively choosing. These routines are so integrated within our brain that implementing a new habit is like hacking these rituals. To facilitate hacking these bad habits we’ve programmed into our brains, consider joining habits together and implementing a different context or environmental cue.

For example, you want to workout tomorrow after work. Remembering to do this will be difficult because this is out of your normal routine. To start, think of a habit you’re already doing the night before. It could be filling and setting the automatic coffee maker for the next day. Think coffee>energized>gym bag. After you set the coffee, grab your gym bag and get it ready for the gym the next day. Place your car keys on the gym bag by the door. This way you’ll have your gym bag ready which will serve as a constant reminder that you are going to the gym after work. Practice this habit coffee>energized>gym bag.

CONCLUSION

In order to build a new habit, we have to challenge our current habit system. Our current habits are mentally wired in place. To develop a new habit, you must hack this wiring. Instead of doing a complete re-wire, sneak in a new habit or a reminder to do the new habit with an existing habit. If you want to journal before bed, put a post-it on your bathroom mirror so you associate brushing your teeth with journaling. In the future, you will associate brushing your teeth with journaling and will not need the post-it anymore because it has become a new integrated habit in your system.

Be patient with yourself, a new habit will not develop over night, but do SOMETHING to attain this new habit. If you are looking to begin an exercise habit, consider hiring me as your personal trainer. I offer online personal training and in-person. While it is ultimately up to you to do the workouts, I will be on your side the whole time. Literally my job and passion is to see you succeed! Share this post and comment below any new habits you want to try to implement into your routine! Thank you.