Breaking Bad...Habits

You probably already know how addictions are formed; how the human brain responds to hits of dopamine, the “feel-good” hormone. You already know that alcoholics serious about kicking their addiction must remove all traces of alcohol from their environment. You grasp the concept of how clearing your home of junk food helps you shed bad eating habits. And so on.

But understanding how and why this happens is a fascinating science and can be encouraging because it means you can train or retrain your brain to respond the way you want it to.

In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear explains the four-step process of Cue, Craving, Response, and Reward. For example, you see a plate of cookies. That’s the Cue. The second step, Craving, is the way you interpret the cue—as in, “I should eat one.” The third step, Response, is the action (you eat one). And lastly, the Reward. It tastes good.

All of that is easy enough to grasp.

What I found intriguing is what studies of the human brain reveal. Once we become addicted, the dopamine spike in our brain does not happen at the point of Reward, or even the point of Action. It spikes at the second step, the Cue. In other words, it’s the anticipation of the reward, not the reward itself, that triggers the rush. A gambler’s dopamine spikes when he sees the dice, not when he throws it.

What does this tell us? Perceived value motivates you to act. Which means perception, at any point along this path, can change the whole outcome. So, whether you’re trying to develop a good habit or break a bad one, four laws of behavior change accompany these four stages: make the habit obvious, attractive, easy, and immediately satisfying.

On the flip side, if you’re trying to break a bad habit, the four laws are the opposite: make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. This all takes a little creativity, but the book provides tricks. The best news is that often by addressing only one or two of these steps, you can successfully change your habit.

Here’s one way I stumbled into this. For years, I used to read my Bible and a short devotional while I ate breakfast. Both were good habits—physical and spiritual nutrition all at once. Then I switched my breakfast from granola to smoothies. Drinking a smoothie did not require sitting, so I took it to my bedroom and sipped on it while I dressed, put on my makeup, and did my hair. I was having a more nutritious, lower calorie breakfast and saving time.

The only problem was, after a while I realized I was no longer reading my Bible. I had “unbundled” my habits and lost something precious in the process!

Last December, I accepted a challenge to read through the book of Luke, a chapter a day. I bought a pretty journal and sat beside the Christmas tree before dawn with my favorite coffee. I lit a candle and turned on my fake fireplace. Soon I was loving the experience so much, I didn’t want the month to end. The highly welcoming atmosphere had tied itself to the habit I was trying to form.

With the tree put away, I was able to keep the habit going at my desk—by keeping my Bible and a new journal handy on my desktop and using a favorite new fountain pen I received from my son for Christmas. Of course, I kept the candle and coffee. It seems silly, but it worked. It’s several little things, but they made the experience obvious, attractive, easy, and immediately satisfying.

 

Which is the whole point. Little things. Every day. Over time. Equals results.

Voting for the "Me" I Want to Become

In a recent post, I quoted from a book by James Clear. Since then, I bought the book and finished it in a week, adding numerous fluorescent green highlights throughout. The title, Atomic Habits, refers to the remarkable results that occur from tiny changes, not unlike the splitting of an atom.

Face it, the quality of our lives depends largely on our habits. But with better habits, anything is possible. We recognize this every January, and we try to make changes. But too often we see little result and by the end of the month we’ve given up. This author offers a framework for getting 1% better every day by making these tiny changes and sticking to them over a long period of time. If you think in financial terms, habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

“Willpower,” he says, “is not the best way to approach habits.” That’s good news, because few of us possess any. What I love about this book is not that it teaches us a bunch of stuff we don’t already know, but that it helps us understand WHY those things are true. It explains how our brains work, how channels of habit are created, and how they can be redirected. It focuses on your system, not your goal.

We tend to focus on our end goal and use that as a motivator. But think about it. Goals are not what differentiate winners from losers. Both may have the same goal. It’s their process, their system of continuous small improvements, that achieves a different outcome. But the outcome itself should not be our focus.

Outcome-based habits tend to be our default. For example, we set a goal to lose forty pounds or to earn so much money, then figure out a plan to reach it and think, “then I’ll be the person I want to be.”

Instead, Clear suggests we flip the script by using Identity-based habits. Start identifying as the person you want to be. For example, “I am the kind of person who is fit and healthy. Fit and healthy people take the stairs. They choose salad over fries, and water over cola. Since I am the type of person who is fit and healthy, I will make these choices.”

Or, “I am the type of person who walks with God. People who walk with God read a portion of the Bible every day.”

Or, “I am the type of person who cares for the environment. People who care for the environment take the time to recycle.”

You begin to realize every action you take is a vote for the type of person you want to be.

This is different than “fake it ‘til you make it,” because when you practice these small habits, you’re providing evidence to reinforce a different identity. No single instance will change anything, but doing small things gives you a glimpse and you begin to see yourself in a new light. That’s why saying things like “I have a sweet tooth” or “I’m lousy at math” or “I am a smoker” is self-sabotage. What you declare, you will act on to build your case.

Although this is not a faith-based book, much of Clear’s advice was suggested in various ways long ago by writers of the scriptures. This month I’ve been going through the Psalms and discovering how often the words “I will…” appear. More than a hundred! David and the other psalmists seemed to inherently understand the significance of making these declarations and the power of repetition.

What kind of person do you want to be? What one little habit does that kind of person practice every day?

More hints on this next week.

It's Habit Forming!

New Year’s resolutions, I’m told, are merely a to-do list for the first week of January. 

I’ve got plans for 2019. For example, I am seriously considering turning sixty years old, just for kicks. In fact, I’ve already booked myself in at a writers’ retreat in Florida as a present to myself and an investment in the next decade. 

I’m also looking forward to retiring from my day job this spring, although I try to look at it not so much like retiring as changing jobs. I want to see what will happen if I devote that time and mental energy to my writing world instead of the municipal world I’ve been part of for the past ten years. This, of course, will require self-discipline by the bucketful, because no one but me will be setting my hours.

And frankly, that’s scary.

I’ve started reading Atomic Habits by James Clear and will probably be harping on it for a while. He says, “Changes that seem small and unimportant at first will compound into remarkable results if you’re willing to stick with them for years.”

I know this is true. Ten years ago, I began writing 500 words a day. I’ve missed the mark many, many days. But 455 blog posts and three novels later, the habit has amounted to nearly half a million words—none of which would have happened had I not made it a small, daily habit. Or if I had declared myself a failure and quit the first time I skipped a day.

James Clear knows it’s easy to think those small, everyday habits don’t make a difference. He says, “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it—but all that had gone before.”

He says to focus on your process, not on goals. Our efforts to develop desirable habits often go sideways because we buy into an all or nothing philosophy. A “go big or go home” way of thinking (which has never worked for me, because going home is my favorite thing.) The end goal is, in many ways, out of your hands. But the daily habit is totally within your grasp. My advice is two-fold.

1.     Go Small.

Start with one tiny, sustainable habit and don’t worry about the rest. Instead of trying to go completely sugar-free, can you learn to drink coffee or tea without sugar? Rather than organizing the whole house and failing, how about one drawer or shelf? If you ever learned to walk, you started with baby steps. And you fell a lot. Which leads to my second point…

2.     Start Again.

Don’t write the whole project off because you missed a day or even a week. Pick it up again tomorrow and don’t overthink it.

More on habits next week. Happy New Year!