I have always been a stubborn person. I’m not sure where it came from; When my mom would tell me to make my own medical appointments, I would deliberately avoid it. At a previous job where I had to be up at 5:45am every morning, I would schedule three alarms: one at 5:45 that I knew I would snooze, one at 5:50 that I knew I would snooze again, and one at 6:00am where I would finally get up and more than likely be late. I would push tasks to the very last minute before a deadline. It was literally me trying to defy what I had subconsciously deemed as the “rules” to prove to myself that I had some control over my life. That was obviously ridiculous and a major setback from the person I wanted to be. Something had to change, but I didn’t have the habits in place that would allow me to follow through on positive behavior for more than a few days in a row.
I attended a neuroscience summit this weekend called Habit Hackers that focused on retraining the brain to set positive habits in order to accomplish goals. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, was the keynote speaker. He spoke of his personal hurdles after he was badly injured (I’m talking broken eye sockets and an induced coma) by taking a baseball bat to the face in high school how he really had to push himself to develop positive habits that would eventually change his life and lead him to where he is now.
I highly recommend the book, but I’ll be sharing a few of his tips that I plan to implement into my daily life to form better habits in finance, health and overall happiness.
CREATING A WEEKLY ACCOUNTABILITY CHART
James discussed “The Power of Tiny Gains” which basically means that if you improve 1% every day, by the end of one year your gains will compound and you will be 37.78% better than when you started. However, if you let yourself fall short just 1% every day, you will not only be below baseline, but you will be .03% worse than when you started.
The neuroscience behind rewards: With this accountability chart, you have the ability to physically see your progress, or lack there of. When creating habits, it is important to reward yourself when you accomplish something that is not innate to your behavior. When you mark off an accomplishment, a tiny bit of dopamine is released in your brain, which is responsible for that “feel good” jolt. When you train your brain to crave that hit of dopamine, you are more likely to continue to whatever allowed it to occur.
NEVER MISS TWICE: We all have off days. Whether it’s from being sick, hungover or just having a meeting that conflicts with your morning schedule, we all have days where we aren’t on our game 100%. The purpose of the physical chart is to see where you succeeded and fell short the day before. The goal is to not miss two days in one particular area two days in a row.
Give yourself some extra blank spaces at the bottom of your list to add things that might be specific to that week, or a new habit you want to try out. For me, I am adding in watching the sunrise and sunset every day this week. I am not sure if that will add extra value to my day, but I will be intentional in my reflection about it and decide if it’s worth adding in print next week.
2. THE FOUR FORMS OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE
CUE: A TRIGGER THAT TELLS YOUR BRAIN TO INITIATE A HABIT
CRAVING: THE SIGNALS YOUR BRAIN SENDS THAT TELLS YOU OF THE SHORT TERM REWARDS OF ENGAGING IN THE HABIT
RESPONSE: YOUR PHYSICAL CHANGE AND ENGAGEMENT WITH THE HABIT
REWARD: THE SHORT TERM DOPAMINE AND SEROTONIN RELEASE THAT OCCURS AFTER YOU ENGAGE IN THE HABIT
I’ll encourage you to insert your own bad habit here, but let’s take the most obvious example that most of us can relate to…hitting the snooze button in the morning.
If you’d like, you should write down a bad habit you want to break and break it down in the four forms above.
For example:
CUE: HEARING MY ALARM GO OFF IN THE MORNING AT THE TIME I SET THE NIGHT BEFORE
CRAVING: THINKING ABOUT HOW GOOD IT WOULD BE TO HAVE 15 MORE MINUTES OF SLEEP AND MAKING UNREALISTIC ADJUSTMENTS IN ORDER TO MAKE IT HAPPEN — “I DON’T REALLY NEED TO SHOWER TODAY” “I CAN GET DRESSED QUICKER THAN I USUALLY DO” “I WAS UP LATE AND DESERVE THIS EXTRA TIME”
RESPONSE: HITTING SNOOZE ON THE ALARM
REWARD: THE FEELING OF SINKING BACK INTO THE PILLOW
Snap to the next scene of me waking up 20 minutes later than I intended, scrambling around the house like a bat out of hell trying to prevent myself from being TOO late. I’m stressed, unprepared and unsatisfied with my decision but it all fades away the following morning where the whole scene will likely happen again.
James said something that was really encouraging:
YOUR WILLPOWER IS NOT FLAWED. YOUR SYSTEM IS.
The way we engage with triggers and cravings is human nature. Usually, our bad habits have short term rewards and long term losses (sleeping later now and feeling great about it for those 15 minutes, but feeling rushed and stressed when trying to make up for lost time). Our long term goals, however, have short term losses and long term rewards (waking up and feeling tired for those 15 minutes, but getting to relax and take the time to calmly prepare for the rest of the day).
We can learn to retrain the way our brain responds to these triggers and cravings by putting barriers in front of bad habits and rewarding positive behavior.
CUE: MAKE IT OBVIOUS
You can change your cues by changing your environment. For me, it’s putting my alarm clock across the room so I have to physically get out of bed to shut it off. My next step is to buy Philips Hue lightbulbs that can be controlled by my smart phone. I can set schedules and have lights slowly turn on over a few minutes to wake me up slowly. I also have started to schedule my meetings in the morning so I have people depending on me to be at a location at a specific time. The guilt of letting someone down is a fantastic motivator.
CRAVING: MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE
Next time you engage in a bad behavior that you’re trying to break, pay special attention to the negative feelings you have about it after you engage in it. When you make a solid choice and choose your positive behavior instead, really focus on the benefit it brings you the rest of the day. As James said, “there is one moment every morning that will determine the rest of your day”. On the days I oversleep, the frazzled and unprepared feeling follows me throughout the day. On the mornings I get up at a specified time, I am confident, prepared and have a genuine sense of purpose that lasts all day. Plus, I sleep 10x better that night.
RESPONSE: MAKE IT EASY
By having lights turned on when you wake up in the morning and an alarm that you have to get out of bed to turn off, you’re over halfway there. At that point it takes double the effort to try to hit snooze and go back to sleep.
REWARD: MAKE IT SATISFYING
In addition to being able to mark an accomplishment on your chart, once you engage in the positive behavior, reward yourself. For me, it’s making a cup of coffee and actively thinking of the things that I am grateful for that day. It’s something small, but I have come to love the mornings I have to myself. My goal is to get even better so that I can have the joy of watching the sunrise every weekday morning.
3. HABIT STACKING
Once you complete a positive behavior (like getting out of bed at the time you specified), you can compound the value by stacking other habits on top of the original one.
It works like this:
After I ____________________, I will ___________________.
My example:
After I wake up in the morning with my alarm, I will put on my gym clothes (that have been laid out at the foot of my bed the night before—make it easy, right?) and will do 50 crunches and 20 push ups.
After I do my crunches and push ups, I will make my green drink and take my vitamins.
After I make my green drink and take my vitamins, I will sit at my counter and journal and meditate for 15 minutes.
After I journal and meditate for 15 minutes, I will make my coffee and map out my day.
Etc.
I encourage you to write down some of your own.
Make these “stacks” things that you can accomplish in short bursts.
4. START WITH THE IDENTITY, NOT THE GOAL
It is SO easy to have a lofty goal, but if the goal is the peak of the mountain that you want to summit, it’s impossible to get there without the gear and the stamina. That being said, James suggests focusing on being the type of person who could achieve the goal.
If I want _____________, I should be the type of person who ______________.
Using my example—I want to wake up earlier.
Instead of leading with the goal of hitting the summit, I have reframed my thinking by stating my goal into an identity statement.
If I want to wake up earlier, I should be the type of person who goes to bed earlier and makes it easy to wake up in the morning.
By switching the vocabulary in your internal dialogue, you start to see yourself as the person you want to be.
I will continue to update this blog with information and insight that is helpful for me in hopes that it will be helpful for you as well. I am a believer in working smarter, not harder so the content of this blog will not just be on habits, but on other topics that aim at overall improvement in daily life.
Thanks for reading my first blog post!