Choose Your Habits

Habits. We all have them. But what are they? What is the nature of a habit? Do you have your habits? Or do your habits have YOU?

Habits can be tricky little critters. So let’s start by learning more about them.

When I am beginning to learn more about something, I usually like to start with the dictionary – to get a fundamental understanding of the meaning of the word. I guess that’s a — habit – I picked up in school! Let’s look at the Doubleday Dictionary definition of habit:

Habit: a tendency toward an action or condition, which by repetition, has become involuntary.

Therefore by definition a habit is unconscious and unintentional.

When our habits are “good habits”, they support our health and well-being. When our habits are “bad habits”, they cause us pain, illness — and in the extreme – our “bad habits” can kill us through stress, heart disease, high blood pressure and. . . well, you get the picture.

According to the American Heart Association and a variety of other experts, it takes about 21 – 30 days to begin to create a new habit. You probably know from personal experience that changing a habit can be challenging.

Why is that?

Let’s begin by remembering that whatever habit you have developed – good or bad – you have been practicing it for a very long time. In some cases, your entire life. And in fact, the more you have practiced this habit, the more physiologically ingrained it has become. That’s right – your habits are actually cellular and neurological.

Science is providing us with some absolutely fascinating insights into our brains and the neurology of our habits and reactions. In short, neuroscience research is demonstrating that our habitual thoughts/feelings/actions are cellular and actually create physiological neural pathways – and memory — in our bodies. No wonder changing habits can be so hard – we are literally re-wiring our physiology – our bodies, how we think and how we feel.

This physiological component also leads to a big tendency that we have to focus on the problem, or what’s wrong, which feels bad. And when we feel bad, we are not necessarily motivated to look for positive solutions – are we? However, we can choose to do so.

There are 2 factors that drive what scientists call neuroplasticity or the ability to change at the neural and cellular level:

• Attention (physical changes in the brain require attention)
• Repetition

This means that you can begin to change habits – as well as the physiology that makes them habits — by where you put your focus and attention. And even though I know it doesn’t feel like it at times, YOU ARE ultimately in charge of what you think and where you put your focus. In other words, you can CHOOSE your habits.

This process starts when you focus on what you WANT, instead of focusing on the problem (the old habit you want to change).

Then you need to develop a plan – and a plan to practice. Practicing is essential to the creation of a new habit.

Take a moment to refer back to the definition of a habit earlier in this article and the key aspects: repetition and involuntary. In order to create the habit you really want, (instead of continuing to practice the one that has you), you now know that “repetition” is still essential. However, we need to flip the “involuntary, unconscious and unintentional” aspects to conscious and intentional.

In other words, the simple formula for Choosing Your Habits:

1. Be Intentional: focus attention on what you want (instead of the problem.)

2. Be Repetitive: practice, practice, practice. . .

Contact us for more information regarding our coaching services, focused on supporting you to create the habits you really want — as well as our dynamic habit creation tool, PRRSS.

annie@AKACoachAndCompany.com
www.AKACoachAndCompany.com

Further reading recommendation: