What is a Habit and how do we do it?

What is a habit? By definition it is:

A settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.

What does this mean?

Well a habit can be anything that is regularly done. Thoughts, emotions, actions, of negative, or a positive nature or even both, that are continuously performed day after day. This is what creates the cycle of a habit.

What is the cycle of a habit?

First you create. A thought happens, then down the rabbit hole it goes. That thought starts a pattern of creation that is then empowered by the bodies reaction to it. After it is then implemented by action, then that thought becomes.

For example, if I start to think about my day and all the things I have to do, I create a checklist. With me, this is my habit so I can stay on top of things that need to get done. Then I start to think about what time I have to be where, how long, and so on, this empowers the thought so that it can then become action. Then as I start to do all the things on my checklist I have now implemented those thoughts into action. Finally once I have completed those thoughts I first had, they have now become. Everyday I repeat the same pattern and this cycle of create, empower, implement, become are the keys to making and keeping habits.

Everyday we have thought after thought, emotion after emotion, and action after action. When you first wake up what is the first thing that happens? Do you have the same patterns? Make the bed, brush your teeth? Think about everything that needs to be done? Whatever your morning routine is, this is a habit.

As humans, habits are part of our nature. The more and more a habit is done the deeper the groove in the brain and the faster the neurons route to it’s destination. In our brains when a habit is formed a groove is dug. Like imagine if it rained on a hill, then that rain started to trickle down the side of it. As the water runs down it starts to form a groove in the hill. The rain keeps coming and the groove gets deeper and deeper. Finally the waters path is set quickest by falling into the groove of the new stream. This is what happens with a habit. That is why it takes at least 30 days for it to start to become a part of your routine. It must create the fastest route for the neurons so that it is automatic, instead of something that you have to think about.

So now that we know how it is created and what must happen for it to become habit lets talk about the noise surrounding starting a new habit, or breaking one.

Let’s say you have a negative habit like smoking. Why is it hard for so many people to quit? Because this habit has created deep neural grooves with a lot of attachments to it. Speaking as a former smoker what finally helped me to quit was realizing why, when, and where I do it. For me there was an emotional component like so many others, Stress. The second reason was an addiction to a substance, and third it was part of my routine. These are my reasons, not everyone will follow the same patterns as I have, however what I am trying to encourage others to do is to become aware of your reasons. What are some of the reasons you continue a habit you don’t want to do anymore? Sit with it, meditate on it. Honing in on what this habit really means to you can allow you to change it and transform from a place of resistance to a place of embracing change.

My first reason, stress; what happens when you have stress? Your body goes into sympathetic mode, fight or flight, your breathe becomes faster and more shallow. You stop breathing. When you stop breathing, your mind goes into panic mode. That panic causes stress, and what does the brain do in order to terminate the stress? It lights up a cigarette. As you pull the cigarette to your lips, you take a deep breathe in and then breathe out. You start to breathe again. That is why the cigarette relaxes you, not because there is components in there like lavander to relax you, but because your lungs take large breaths in that triggers the parasympathetic, rest and digest to start.

So for me this was the first step in changing a habit that I wanted to stop. I started to take deep breaths in and out when I started to get stressed or when I had cravings. This was hard at first, I fought it. I wanted to cave all the time, but I remembered my goals. The reasons for why I wanted to end this in the first place.

Make your reasons for why you can outway your excuses for why you can’t as an anchor, so that when you can always come back to it.

My second reason, addiction. An addiction lights up our brains when we give in to it. It’s an instant gratification, and sometimes chemical dependency to an action, emotion, substance, or even person. Cravings last about 15 seconds. It’s intense, and comes on hard like a wave crashing you in the face and all you want to do is just succumb to it. During this time I tried numerous things, chewing gum, holding a pen to my mouth and just breathing. It took about 3 days for the cravings to get less, and a week for the addiction side of it to the substance to just go away. This isn’t always an easy process, it can be damn right unbearable, but picture it, where you were before you ever started doing it. Knowing that it is possible to be free of it gives you the real image in your head to visualize. I was smoke free once, I am capable of being there again.

This powerful image empowers you to be able to follow through with it. Let images of where you want to be inspire you to get there.

My routine of smoking was empowered with thoughts. I will be less stressed if I smoke. I made smoking a positive, and the process of quitting a negative.

So what does this look like? If I quit smoking it will hurt, and be hard. I’ll be more stressed, I will get angry and irritable. I will probably gain more weight if I quit.

These negative thoughts associated with quitting made the routine even more reinforced. Those negative associations were so strong that every time I tried to quit those thoughts would be empowered and then, the routine would continue.

What could you do then? Well I’ll tell you.

I changed my mindset here. This is hard to do when you have a skewed perspective of the situation. If you want to change your reality, you have to ask a different question, and gain a different answer.

I changed the act of quitting a positive, What would I gain if I quit smoking?

If I continue to smoke it will be harder for me to breathe. If I quit smoking then working out will be more enjoyable. Quitting smoking will make my skin brighter, my breathing better. Any type of positive I could think of to enforce the quitting process, I used. I made the habit of smoking a negative and the habit of being smoke free a positive.

What does this mean for all habits?

Positive reinforcement is huge.

Seriously, lets take the opposite of this now by starting a healthy habit such as working out.

When you think about working out, what may come to mind if you are trying to start a new habit but you have a negative association with it. It could look something like this:

Ugh I don’t want to get up and workout it will be painful. I don’t have time to workout, it takes so long. I won’t have time for other things. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ll never get this. I don’t know why I am doing this. Etc etc...

What happens then? Well you don’t make it a priority or do it. You reinforce exercise as a negative and you never start. You hype yourself up to do it, then because of that negative reinforcement you do not follow through, and this cycle is a cycle of anxiety when it comes to working out. You psyche yourself out and then punish yourself for not doing it, all because your view of exercise= pain.

Now lets change, exercise=pain —— exercise=pleasure.

I will feel better after I workout. I enjoy working out, I get to be around a supportive community. I enjoy working on figuring out the movement. Exercise is fun and I love doing it.

Making the process enjoyable and fun will in turn take that task and create consistency.

What does consistency and practice do? Creates habits! Knowing how to create, empower, implement, and become will lead to habits that you will love and keep. The next blog entry lets talk about Creating. This is when we test our imagination. When we figure out what it is we truly want to create. Let us open ourselves up to that little kid inside and lets figure out what is going to make those habits want to stick!