Everyone has them, nobody wants them: bad habits. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the digestion cigarette or the frustration chocolate – there are ways to change undesirable behavior.
“Habits are the shackles of the free man,” the American journalist and writer Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce once said during his lifetime. If we follow the reasoning, then habits limit our flexibility and prevent us from developing further. But habits also have their purpose – if they are the right ones.
As soon as we integrate habits into our everyday life, we have a framework that gives us security and structure. By relieving our brain in the relevant areas, we create free capacity for other things. For example, we can react much better to new encounters, process experiences and perceive our emotional world.
Habits always have a trigger
However, not all habits are equally good for us. Who doesn’t know it: Instead of getting used to exercising and eating healthily, we end up on the sofa every evening with a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate and stream series. This is also a habit that we have established at some point without consciously wanting to.
But why do such habits arise in the first place? British psychology professor Bas Verplanken has been researching the topic for years. He describes habits as automatic reactions to certain triggers. That is, we are unaware of the behavior but repeatedly act the same way in a given context. And at some point our memory saved exactly this behavior.
Six steps to new habits
It doesn’t matter whether we want to establish new habits or want to get rid of unwelcome behaviors, one thing is fundamental for both: we have to understand that there is always a trigger for the behavior, it’s a kind of conditioning.
Based on that, there are six steps you can take to change or adjust your habits:
- Become aware of your habits
It may sound logical at first and hardly worth mentioning, but many people don’t even know their habits. So consciously reflect on which activities you perform automatically and always in the same way or at least in a similar way. This goes from the morning routine to the frustration candy bar. - Find the triggers for your habits
Habits don’t come out of nowhere, they always have an appeal that precedes them. If we want to change our behavior, we first have to find the triggers for it. The next time you start a habit, ask yourself why you’re doing it. The reasons are often more trivial than you think. Sometimes, however, there is more behind it, such as when eating when you are frustrated. No matter what the trigger, to change the habit, the stimulus must be changed or addressed. - Set positive goals for new habits
Language is more powerful than you think. If you want to establish new habits or discard old ones, you should always formulate your goals in a positive way and not focus on what needs to be avoided. The background is the so-called irony effect. According to this, avoidance resolutions direct the awareness to what is actually supposed to be discarded. So instead of “Eat less chocolate” it should be “Eat more fruit”. - Replace old habits with new ones
Habits, no matter how unpleasant they may be, give us structure. So if we want to break routines, we should offer our brain a substitute action instead of simply stopping the behavior. Instead of reaching for a chocolate bar when we are frustrated, we could then eat an apple, breathe consciously or go out into the fresh air. - Be patient and reward small successes
Changing behavior is hard work for our brains. That’s why we need one thing above all to establish habits: patience. On average, it takes 66 days for us to internalize new habits – sometimes more, sometimes less. Within that time, we need discipline to repeat the desired behavior over and over again. If we succeed, we should also be proud of small successes. And understand us if things don’t work out. - Get social support on board
“Without outside help, it is almost impossible to change personality on a large scale,” says brain researcher Gerhard Roth in an interview with Die Zeit. We are social beings and need external validation. So as soon as we tell those around us about the plans to change habits, we automatically become more motivated to go through with the project. And we also get support along the way.
source: , ,
Source: Stern
