A new year means new beginnings and fresh starts, an opportunity to embrace new perspectives when considering the future and all the wonderful possibilities it holds for you.
Whether you are someone who avidly creates a list of New Year resolutions, or maybe the holiday season has offered you some time to reflect about what you would like to achieve. Many of us begin a new year with hopes and desires to commit to change, to reach a goal, to improve things for ourselves or others.
So how can we make it happen?
In general terms, most ‘resolutions’ involve change - perhaps it’s a commitment to exercise more, to improve your work-life balance, to loose weight, to improve relationships, to get a handle on those exam nerves that limit you, or perhaps even to stop smoking - in order to reach these goals we must commit to change, adopting different actions and often reactions too.
Often these changes are based around habits - creating new ones, and perhaps also replacing, modifying or ‘improving’ old ones!
So what makes a habit?
Essentially habits have four stages:
· the cue - this may be a ‘trigger’ like the time of day
· the craving - this is the ‘thing’ the brain thinks it ‘needs’ (chocolate, a drink…)
· the routine - this is the way we facilitate the craving (going to the vending machine, the bar…)
· and finally the reward - this is the chemical response that makes us ‘feel good’ (maybe feelings of satiation or pleasure).
Sometimes habits are broken simply by a change in routine.
For instance, when my work was based in a building with a cafeteria, I developed a habit of buying and eating a sandwich and a packet of crisps daily. Not only was this unnecessary (I made packed lunches for my kids each day, so the effort of making another for myself would have been minimal), but it also resulted in me gaining weight, as the job involved little movement from a desk. Now this habit for me was broken when I was made redundant - the routine of my day totally changed and therefore so did the way I thought about lunch. When working away from home, I have a packed lunch without the unhealthy addition of crisps (mostly!).
BUT imagine for instance that my job was not something that could (or did) change, and I wanted to break the routine in order to eat more healthily.
First lets look a little closer at it. On first analysis, it’s easy to think:
· The cue - it’s lunchtime, I’m hungry;
· The craving - I like crisps, I want crisps, I need crisps now;
· The routine - I go to the canteen, the crisps are on the counter as I wait to pay, ‘smoky bacon please!’
· The reward - eating said unhealthy snack - yum - sitting with colleagues over lunch.
Looking closer - what was it that prevented me from making a packed lunch at home?
Well, for that I need to consider the few days when I did make that lunch at home. When lunchtime (the cue) came, I would eat my lunch at my desk and not take a break, the day went ok, but I would often reach the end of my day not having connected with other people.
A little further investigation - I rarely ate crisps at my desk, on the occasions I did, I didn’t experience the same feelings of fulfilment and enjoyment I associated with eating them in the canteen.
More investigation. On the days when I had my lunch at my desk and made an effort to have coffee and a chat with my colleagues, I experienced the similar ‘hit’ of enjoyment and fulfilment as when I went to the canteen.
When you look carefully, my ‘reward’ wasn’t the crisps, my reward was the interaction with others, and we are, after all, social beings. However, what had happened was that I had fallen into the trap of reinforcing this healthy reward of positive interaction, with the process of a less healthy food type, my brain incorrectly prompted me to eat crisps, potentially associating these with the lovely feelings that the boost of oxytocin brought, rather than the connection and interaction with colleagues, which is what really generated the production of this feel-good hormone.
This is a similar trap that we may fall into with smoking or with drinking. It is not a huge step to take from where I was at to buying and eating crisps for the conscious (or unconscious) intention to ‘feel better’ or ‘cope’.
The example here was very simplistic for the purpose of the blog, but creating and breaking habits generally works in this way. Habits are automatic and therefore happen in our subconscious, they are our default. When thought of in this way it is not surprising that some habits can be broken simply by a change in routine, job or environment. At other times, however, we must take a more direct approach, adopting a plan and practicing it, basically building and strengthening new neural pathways in the brain, so that the ‘new way’ becomes our default, and the ‘old way’ is no longer how we do things or see things.
It is important to note that not all habits are bad, many are far from it, elite athletes and sports people, for example, all have habits that enable them to perform at the level they do. Gymnasts and climbers alike rehearse routines, routes and movements over and over again in order to perfect their technique and reach such a level of automacity that performing becomes habitual, allowing them to concentrate on the finite details. In this case the power of combining thought or ‘visualisation’ (an opportunity for perfect practice), with physical practice has been thoroughly researched, and has the bonus of avoiding over-training and possible injury. This technique can be utilised by us mere mortals too!
So, what should I do? I want to change! I have a goal!
‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,’ (Lao Tzu).
The first step is all about identifying the habit that needs modifying or replacing, consciously thinking about it and changing your perspective in order to better enable you to achieve it.
The next step is up to you - you might tackle it alone, you may seek help by joining a group or working with someone like me to help you identify reinforce the habits that are helping you, modifying or changing those which are less helpful, enabling you to let go of things that bothered you in the past, work toward your goal, and the best ever version of you!
Take a moment now just to imagine the possibilities…Happy New Year!
