Instead of just talking about how habit-building works – recapping basics and adding recommendations at the end from the many corresponding resources –, today we dive into how we relate to Change (illuminating why we are willing or reluctant to) and how habits relate to our context of Consciousness, Personal Growth, Leadership, Flow and Quality of Life.
There seems to be a fundamental understanding how powerfully habits and routines shape our Lives. It makes only sense to work with them and tweak them to our liking, purposes and benefit.
While I personally believe we are way more (on principle) than what we repeatedly do, it seems an insight-eliciting notion to ponder this enlarged perspective in terms of our habits.
Which ones contribute to the Life you want to live, the quality you want your experiences to have? Which ones don't?
Can you start decreasing the frequency of detrimental activities until you can stop them? Or can you stop doing them right away?
Can you start having more of the activities (meaning also the thoughts you think) that make you feel inspired, empowered, happy, balanced, peaceful, calm, clear thinking, and help you amplify intuitive nudges, going with the Flow?
Do you believe you can change? Do you want to?
Including again a ton of such Self-reflection questions, as tools to serve you find your answers. We talk through habits in two parts.
Navigate - Part 1
Part 2 (coming up)
Routines and habits. Effort to change. Calibrate and celebrate. Compound effect and kaizen. Flow habits - highest leverage. Qualify your habits. Habits and Leadership.
Start: believing positive change is possible
Verbalise your reasons and the benefits you will gain.
When things are not working well enough in our Lives, even if it's just a certain staleness or stagnation day in, day out, it is a big question whether we want to actually change.
Are you talking about wanting to improve things?
Are you thinking about it?
What are your often recurring thoughts regarding this?
That's a start. That's recognition. That's initial Awareness.
At first it may not be completely conscious. It can start with a feeling, a mood. Things not being so exciting, "missing" something, feeling absent-minded or not so energised, or your mood and energy levels fluctuating. Your social and work relationships reflecting these.
What is most impacted by it?
How else would you word these indicators?
Do you know how you would like to feel instead?
When it comes to Change, we may have very different approaches to it.
The mindset with which we approach it, can be improved. To not fear or doubt it (and learn which beliefs our fears and doubts stem from), but see the opportunity in Transformation.
You become inspired to change your Life for the better. Willpower revved up.
Then you can look at the various motivations that invite you to start acting upon it: the reasons that make it really worthwhile for you to undertake alterations for.
In general this can look like: wanting to live all-round healthier, more balanced, understanding more your relationship dynamics in any Life area, responding to circumstances with increased resilience and Awareness.
Primarily: a higher quality Life and Leadership.
Then again you can make your WHYs, your reasons to want to change and exist for, as detailed and specific as you like.
What are the main reasons that seem to have sufficient motivational power to get you
started and keep going?
You can identify these relatively easily, as they cause a close to immediate positive shift in your state of being (mood, feelings, thoughts, Inspiration levels).
These reasons help through doubts and insecurities during the process of Change, in moments when the Body and Subconscious just want to return to the "old Known" programming – even when you consciously know what's not good for you.
We can grow beyond "this is the way things are" or "this is the way I am" (notice, if these come up in any form in your Inner Dialogues or in any dialogue with a fellow human). This is also the language of the Subconscious programming, trying to keep you from deviating from what it knows and feels comfortable in.
We first need a level of Faith, to believe that it is possible to make improvements. That conscious effort is our springboard.
Do you believe that Change is possible for you?
When not, what are reasons you usually come up with?
When yes, what are you most comfortable starting Change with?
Without committing to any action just yet, would it feel okay to simply make a mental or written list of the things you want to change?
Then to elaborate on what a difference this would make in your Life?
Then to notice the reasons that make you feel more confident and willing to actually undertake anything?
Resistance as useful feedback mechanism
Opportunity to adjust your approach and Subconscious programme.
When you are about to expand your comfort zone, there can be a sense of fear or discomfort, which signal that the Subconscious has been activated – it recognizes when you go "off track" with your established patterns of behaviour when you do anything unfamiliar.
The sensations can be also positive, a sense of excitement. It really will depend on how you interpret things. Adaptation is training resilience muscles and Growth Mindset.
Your attitude to Change and the Unknown will become a great asset for succeeding.
Becoming aware of your relationship to Change is potentially even more essential at first than focusing on the actual details of it or which exact habits you want to implement.
When you comprehend how Change elementally works physiologically and psychologically, and learn to interpret your mental-emotional responses better through Self-reflection, you can prime yourself to more easily navigate and lead Change.
What is the narrative when you want to, but then don't change things?
What kind of thoughts keep repeating?
Can you verbalise any fear around Change?
You may not recognize it as "fear" – what are your signs of discomfort that you recognize?
Can you notice which kind of Changes evoke excitement?
What do you believe is the worst that can happen?
What do you believe is the best that can happen?
Your answers especially to these last two questions will be very telling about your current attitude to Life, your mindset. The more you observe your wording of answers, the more in detail you can detect the underlying premises driving them.
How do we make the process even more feasible?
Practical experiments – see what works for you best.
While a strong enough intention can initiate positive Change along with inspiring-motivating reasons you've found, the process of "re-programming" can be made more effortless, if you consider the following points as you progress.
1. Not to overwhelm – doable steps
The popular resources Tiny Habits and Atomic Habits will explain this dynamic in-
depth: choosing doable actions that you perceive as easy to do, even right away. Ones you can stick to. Enough to get started and stay consistent with.
Try not under- or overestimate the size of the effort. Just see what feels easy to do that obviously adds to your Life in some way.
What can you do right away with ease?
2. Prioritise – level of importance for your Bigger Picture/Life Vision
Too much info, too many Change initiatives at once may not be optimal.
See which are adjustments that make the biggest difference in terms of your greater goals.
3. Keep it playful – relaxing the Mind
No wonder gamifying works so well. It taps into powerful emotions like curiosity, joyfulness, enthusiasm, lightheartedness. One of the most effective moods to access and enhance your Flow. Being playful helps relax the relatively anxious and protective Ego, who wants you to stay put and not change (afraid of the Unknown where Potential actually lives).
When are you most playful?
What feels most effortless to you?
What are times of day, activities, environments, people, that help you get into that mood?
4. Healthy relationship with Self – collaborating not punishing or pushing
Self-Awareness is any time highly valuable, especially when undertaking Changes. When the process of Changing doesn't go smoothly, when you feel you "haven't achieved enough" or "succeeding not fast enough", become aware if you feel tempted to blame or shame yourself.
Healing and maintaining your Self-respect, Self-acceptance, Self-love, are key for a balanced Self-concept and Self-actualization.
See if you like to apply the principle and be your own Best Friend.
Find ways to integrate it into your Self-talk, so that it reflects your support for yourself as you are doing your best, despite any "hiccups", in this Personal Evolution Journey.
5. Understand what consistency means to you – interpretation matters
Staying consistent is essentially what successful habit-formation is. The repetition is tied to the physiological process of hardwiring the new neural pathways that carry the information of the new habit.
I found myself interpreting consistency as "boring". Changing such a meaning to a more empowering one, can help. As well as recognizing our individual preferences. For me it means to apply variations and creative forms to my habits, to keep my Mind entertained and remain consistent with the habits I value as well-contributing to my Life.
Check in with yourself what kind of interpretations you have for "consistency".
6. Emotions related to the habit – the Reward
You'll see not only in the later described "habit loop" (cue-routine-reward-craving) of Duhigg, but can apprehend by observing your own habits, why we become so attached to them. Flow for example can make you feel calmly confident but also ecstatic. It can become a most addictive state, so extra caution is required to remain balanced. Ideally we choose habits that both make us feel good and contribute positively to our Lives.
Perspectives: "Emotions create habits. Not repetition. Not frequency. Not fairy dust. Emotions." – writes BJ Fogg. According to Duhigg, it is the craving for the reward that powers the "habit loop".
That innate reason. The stronger this is, the easier the habit sticks. A perpetuated positive emotion that serves as positive reinforcement – which is highly effective for behaviour modification.
We need to therefore choose and discern our habits carefully – not only for their pleasure factor, but their meaningful contribution.
Do your chosen habits truly serve your goals while respecting your Well-being as well as surroundings?
Do they have any harmful aspects and consequences?
How do they make you feel overall?
How do they make you feel before-during-after?
7. Learning to be okay with restarting
You may have had patience, perseverance with your habit-implementation and even gaining momentum and then due to some Life event you stop.
(Either that or holding on to your habit for comfort in the middle of turmoil.)
Your commitment may fluctuate. It happens. The purpose is not to torture ourselves (well, it's your choice).
It may not have been the ideal timing or circumstance to integrate that particular habit the first time around.
But then you have the opportunity to restart. No guilt. No shame. Simply starting again.
Interpretation can be yet again very helpful. It shall feel empowering. Like: "I can already incorporate my previous learnings into restarting".
How do you reword it for yourself?
How can you powerfully reframe something that currently feels rather negative?
8. Not comparing
This relates also to point 4. When you have a healthy communication with yourself, your Intuition, you trust yourself, you'll know what is aligned with your Core Identity – irrespective of (yet possibly respecting) other opinions. No matter if it's an influential Mentor or "renowned expert". They are not you. Embracing your own unique Self-expression, timing, being fair with yourself, is part of the Work here. Not comparing to someone else's results (in a disempowering way) whose exact investments and Life events that led to their moments of Success you can't see in detail.
You can trust yours though. Everything you are and you have gone through to arrive in this very Moment.
Examples are great as long as they teach you something and inspire – check in with your Self-/Awareness once again:
What meaning do you give the examples you are currently looking to?
Is your interpretation of them empowering? Disempowering?
Find the underlying beliefs.
9. Celebrating wins
Feeling and being grateful is not just another phrase or buzzword or fashion trend.
When being grateful for all the things that go well, we are strengthening the mental-emotional pathways that feed our Confidence and harmonious connection to Self.
It's not only the reward system for the Brain (which is important for habit-formation), but also taking into account our spiritual need for compassion, Meaning and appreciation.
Celebrating ourselves. As kids we knew how to. We unlearned it (maybe were encouraged to). But Humility and appreciating ourselves for who we are, can co-exist. This is a powerful belief to apply, if you choose to: "I can be humble and confident at the same time. It's okay".
What do you believe about celebrating what goes well?
Are you feeling any resistance around recognition?
What kind of Self-talk do you have around what is "enough reason" to celebrate?
How habits work in general
And how you can identify the various elements in your own "habit loops".
Having gone through some of our major dynamics around Change and how
we can cope with or even master them, we shall look at the basics of how habits work. As far as we know today.
Duhigg gives us the following framework in his book The Power of Habit:
1. Identify the routine
This is the behaviour that gives the main essence/activity of the habit.
2. Experiment with rewards
Figure out what the cravings (that power the "habit loop") are behind the behaviour by trying different rewards.
In other words: what is it that you really get out of your habit?
Think in terms of feeling and meaning behind even the tangible results.
What do the results mean to you?
3. Isolate the cue
Cues usually fall into five main categories: time (like a certain time of day) , location, an emotional state, other people, an immediately preceding action.
As James Clear says in a related article "The key to choosing a successful cue is to pick a trigger that is very specific and immediately actionable."
4. Have a plan
Change occurs following a deliberate choice, then automating the habit.
When we learn to deeply understand our habit choices, why they matter to us, it will be easier to keep them adaptable and fun even in changing conditions.
Just like we aim to do this with Flow and our evolving Character: the moving parts of our Lives, habits, routines, our responses to events rooted in greater Awareness, shall become a natural, organic fabric that serve and align to our purposes in the best ways.
What's the cost of inaction and harmful habits?
How much you value the Time you are given will show up in your response to this.
Awareness practices help recognize what elements/habits need weeding out.
The risk is to have damaging habits that lower Life quality.
Harm can also be that these habits distract from your goals and not add to well-being either.
The significance of the state of our Self-image is quite plain here.
How much you value yourself, is indicated in how much you value your Life choices.
How much you care about their outcomes.
Do and redo these exercises, revisit these questions while in parallel you are improving the way you see yourself. The level of intensity of caring, of willingness may dramatically increase.
Research suggests that by the age of 35 we run 95% on autopilot (if no conscious work and choices applied), mostly on programmes which are not good for us. Showing up all the way in behaviour, perception, relationships, circumstance...
What does no-Change cost you?
What does it cost when you consider Time as a context and gauge?
What does it cost when you consider Life Quality as a gauge?
What can you clearly see deteriorating?
When you don't consider the uniqueness of every moment as an opportunity to choose better, you most likely won't be able to harness the magnitude of the Moment.
A grander scale view can help, hence we utilise Life Vision for that or a Legacy point of view.
To get into a mood of Possibility, of positive Change, Inspiration. Where you feel you can change the course of your Life for the better.
The Work together
Connecting your Personal Growth, Life Vision, Flow-inducing habits and Leadership.
Increasing your quality of Life while Self-actualizing and representing the best conscious evolution you can – inspiring others by your example.
We approach your Life from the macro perspective: your big personal vision, your business, your Leadership and from a micro level where habits and your daily actions form, your decisions are made and add up to that greater Vision.
With your conscious Awareness as a compass and which helps you stay on track.
Evaluating how your related routines tie in with your greater goals and revise if necessary.
The Life Vision or Bigger Picture (or any other description that you feel most aligned with) context provides the strong reasons WHY you want to initiate Change in the first place. That will get more facetted throughout the process.
The Coaching Work together helps with all that context, goal setting, adjustments, optimising mindset around Change, revealing sabotaging patterns and replacing them with contributing ones.
You may be already in a safe, non-judgmental environment, and yet it will prove essential for facing certain aspects of your Life that require more tact, vulnerability and when some things don't go exactly as you wanted.
Finetuning your interpretation, perception, will be one of the greatest additions for the long-term.
As we set up your optimised framework, some seemingly small adjustments can start to weigh on you more as you are doing your best to stay consistent with them.
Transformation happens in this progress.
You'll expand and optimise this framework as it best suits you for Future outcomes.
To continue the conversation within the framework of Coaching and Mentoring
I invite you to...
utilise the Self-evaluation questions link on the website, and I'll also send a form designed for Discovery.
Feedback, questions and sharing are most welcome.
What kind of new insights have you gained? Could you eliminate some doubts? Confirmed certain priorities to yourself as you read through? Ignited new light bulbs?
If you want to share your ideas around this theme or specific questions about what you are currently focusing on solving-improving, simply send me a message.
In the meantime enjoy your contemplation time as you learn to improve your Life and Leadership.
Tamara
Recommended Resources
Videos. Articles. Books.
Stephen R. Covey: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. No wonder it's become a classic. It is easy to understand and comprehensive. Teaching how to change our way of thinking and perception, embody desired Values and achieve desired results.
Dr. Joe Dispenza: Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself. In my view, one of the best out there to explain in simple language the science of how our Brain and Mind work and how we can change.
Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit. Why we do what we do in Life and Business. or Why we do what we do and how to change. He describes the nature of habits: how the Brain creates a "habit loop" through cues, routines and rewards. This way the habit gets ingrained. We only need to make sure it is the good, contributing habits we ingrain (hardwire). A very important notion: willpower can be learned/increased. We need to become aware of what drives our behaviour and decide ahead of time, how we are going to respond to our specific triggers when they show up through (most often) unconscious behaviours.
His short description of the 4-steps to change a habit: How Habits Work - Charles Duhigg
An animated summary I found quite useful The Power of Habit Charles Duhigg - YouTube
BJ Fogg: Tiny Habits. On his homepage BJ (behavioural scientist at Stanford) explains the basic principles with (really) tiny habits. Welcome | Tiny Habits. He focuses on behavioural design in order to get started and engineer lasting Change.
James Clear: Atomic Habits. Similar to tiny habits, though here the compound effect is emphasized and choosing the for you right system for Change.
His article on The Habit Loop: 5 Habit Triggers That Make New Behaviors Stick (jamesclear.com) can provide some good insight as well and incorporates Duhigg's "habit loop".
Greg McKeown: Essentialism. The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. About optimal energy investment for highest yield and disciplined thinking as a way of living.
Carol Dweck: Mindset. Changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. This book is quoted by many others and is one of the most fundamental concept descriptions on Fixed vs. Growth Mindset and how they influence our level of Success.
Ethan Schwandt does book reviews with mind maps. Related one: Five Things I Learned About Habits From 100+ Books - YouTube. In that video Ethan mentions a few more valuable resources on this this topic. He has a dedicated video also on Carol Dweck's book.
And a bit of a scientific resource for those of you, who want to explore this side of things:
Some takeaways from this one – notes:
The Aristotelian conception classifies habits into three categories:
(1) theoretical, or the retention of learning understood as “knowing that x is so”;
(2) behavioural, through which the agent achieves a rational control of emotion-permeated behaviour (“knowing how to behave”);
and (3) technical or learned (embodied) skills (“knowing how to make or to do”).
In the classical Aristotelian view, when the agent acquires a (good) habit, he or she performs the action: (1) more easily; (2) more efficiently; and (3) with higher enjoyment.
Habits, viewed as a cognitive enrichment of behaviour, are a crucial resource for understanding human learning and behavioural plasticity.
Behavioural habits can be defined as knowing how to act.
"In general terms, on the basis of experimental research in neuroscience, a habit is defined as a motor or cognitive routine that, once it is triggered, completes itself without conscious supervision. Furthermore, it has always been characterized via terms such as “unconscious”, “rigid”, “automatic” and, more importantly, “non-teleological”: that is, as the opposite of goal-directed. However, the original and most elegant description of habits, which goes back to Aristotle, defines them as acquired dispositions that improve the agent’s performance, making him/her more successful in the quest to achieve a goal."
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