Are you happy with the person you have become? Most people experience a disparity between who they are and what they aspire to be. To attain the desired goal, it may seem essential to alter one's personality. We get frustrated and irritated with ourselves more and more with each failed attempt. As with most things in life, knowing "why" makes things simpler.
Due to the preconditioning of the brain, it becomes increasingly difficult to change old habits and form new ones. Imagine your brain as a rich and dense forest for a better explanation. It will be challenging and energy-consuming to move through it, say, to decide to do anything. All of our actions and behaviours leave trails in the forest of our brain because our brain dislikes expending energy, so it came up with a trick. We begin by trampling some plants to make routes through the bush. The more we do it, the more noticeable the trail gets. Over time, it becomes a more pleasant road to travel, so we use it more frequently and eventually become a street. When we do the same thing again and again over the years, the roadway transforms into a motorway. It becomes effortless, familiar, and pleasant to traverse. The more apparent brain highways are, the more involuntary they become. So, we keep using them, which means we keep doing what we've always done. This is why change is difficult, especially as an adult, because your brain has already created concrete paths and roads. To understand how such highways are built, we must first distinguish between routines and habits.
A routine is a series of acts that you repeat over and over because they have been successful. For example, buying the same ingredients for cuisine and cooking them in a specific order to get the desired flavour. Or set an alarm for 6:30 a.m. before going to bed to wake up at that time. Imagine routines executed by a wise planner. It is slow and analytical, responsible for strategising and mental calculations. The planner is aware of the future and carefully considers what kind of result you want. Based on that, it chooses actions to achieve specific outcomes, even if they are uncomfortable, like taking a shower after waking up. Routines can eventually become habits. Habits seem much more comfortable because they are a series of acts performed without thinking (also called muscle memory). We've done things so many times that the brain finds them rewarding and an excellent response to the problem. As a result, a habit might make you feel like you're on autopilot. We don't have to persuade ourselves to do something, it has already become a habit. The crucial thing to remember about habits is that they are put in motion by triggers, which have context cues, which can be single or entire scenarios, that send a signal to your brain to begin the behaviour or activity. We already have several triggers in our life, such as when we see our phone, we almost always unlock it. When you sit in a car, you grab your seat belt. Or, if you buy coffee before work, you get a cookie even if you aren't hungry.
A toddler is a good way to illustrate Habits. It reacts to our current desires based on what is nearby. Without regard for any longer-term objectives. The toddler has no concept of the future and despises hard effort. So, when it detects a trigger, it steers down this simple path inside the brain that leads to a familiar pleasant outcome. Most of our terrible habits began with this satisfying feeling: chocolate is good, and browsing Reddit is occasionally moderately entertaining. This is why we continue to do these things, even if they are unhealthy for us. Rewarding feelings are linked to an active urge to be repeated, thus forming harmful habits. While the toddler may appear to be a built-in sabotage mechanism, it is just as necessary as the smart planner, and it functions well together most of the time. We need our clever planner for big ideas, parallel parking, and tax preparation. However, allowing our clever planner to accomplish everything would consume too much energy. Outsourcing dull and repetitive chores to toddler-managed habits let our brain manage our daily life while also coping with more sophisticated mental issues. So, if we wish to modify and incorporate new behaviour into our lives, we can employ these energy-saving methods to help us.
We will concentrate on minor details rather than major ones. Improving our life incrementally is far preferable to aiming high and altering nothing. Especially since tiny adjustments can have a big impact over months and years. If we want to make the changes easy, the greatest solution may not be to push but to convince our brain that it isn't such a huge problem. By developing new routines and making them habitual. We want our clever planner to build the initial trail and then utilize your toddler to smoothly launch the action. Assuming we want to exercise to get in shape, is a relatively typical objective. The first step is to break down this somewhat generic goal into distinct, discrete activities because the goal is to make the action itself as simple as possible: small enough to be feasible and detailed enough that we don't have to think about it. A tangible, controllable action could be "performing ten squats" every morning, for example. So, we can begin by attempting to establish a pattern, but add clear triggers that the toddler can take up later on. Remember that a trigger is simply a signal that we always identify with an action. They can be visual cues, such as seeing a certain object, such as your exercise attire. Or a specific time of day, or a specific location. What matters is that we always begin our actions in a precise setting. This trigger is the start button that will finally initiate the activity. If we continue, they will transform from a routine to a habit, from a path to a highway. Don't get me wrong: squats will still require your energy, but doing them will seem less like a job and more like a regular part of your day. While this is straightforward, it is not simple. Many things you want to become a habit don't provide as much immediate enjoyment as squandering time on Reddit. Make our new activity delightful to make it easier to repeat and more likely to be picked up by the toddler. Not necessarily through rewarding yourself afterwards, but by making the action or behaviour more joyful in and of itself. As an example, we could only listen to our favourite music or podcasts while working out. The beginning is the easiest phase, especially in the first week or two. The difficult part is continuing to do it every day. However, as we progress, it becomes easier. Finally, change is a continuous journey, leading to a destination.
“Sow an act, you reap a habit; sow a habit, you reap a character; sow a character, you reap a destiny.”
Bibliography:
Manson, Mark. "How to Change Your Life." Mark Manson. Mark Manson, 10 June 2021. Web. 28 Aug. 2022:https://markmanson.net/how-to-change-your-life
Kurzgesagt. Change Your Life – One Tiny Step at a Time. Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, 07 June 2022. Web. 28 Aug. 2022:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75d_29QWELk
Attwell, D., & Laughlin, S. B. (2001, October). An Energy Budget for Signaling in the Grey Matter of the Brain. Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow &Amp; Metabolism, 21(10), 1133–1145. https://doi.org/10.1097/00004647-200110000-00001
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. 2013.
Neal, David & Wood, Wendy & Labrecque, Jennifer & Lally, Phillippa. (2012). How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 48. 492-498. 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.011.
“Changing Habits &Ndash; Learning Center.” Learning Center, 6 June 2022, learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/changing-habits.
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