| Word Count: 1,488 Estimated Read Time: 6 Min. |
Most people battle bad habits. This is not a guess or supposition. A survey of 9,400 Americans found that a large percentage had had the following bad habits that they wanted to change at some point in their lives:
Not exercising enough 65%Not saving enough money 61%
Procrastinating 56%
Sleeping too little 52%
Staying up late 49%
Eating too much 47%
Spending too much money 46%
Being lazy 43%
Drinking too much caffeine 39%
Too much screen-time before bed 38%
These are just the top 10. There are many more including harmful things such as drinking too much and smoking and innocuous things like nail biting (men), carrying a heavy bag on the same shoulder regularly (women), and being easily distracted from a task.
So, when people set annual goals that run contrary to these bad habits – even SMART goals – they are often unsuccessful. See, winners and losers have the same goals. Some achieve those goals but most do not. Based on the chart, two out of three Americans have set a goal of exercising regularly. They might set a goal of exercising three days a week. But after a few months, they find themselves procrastinating and being lazy. (Oh, it is ironic that one bad habit then contributes to another.) If you can relate to the battle between goals and bad habits, now you know that you have company… lots of company. So why is it that?
Goals vs. Habits
In the battle between goals and habits, habits usually win. It helps to understand why. Bad habits and good habits live in the same part of the brain. For the brain, all habits are created equal (without judgment) and made in the same part of the brain. Neuroscientists have traced habit-making to the basal ganglia, a more “primitive” low-level part of the brain that also plays a key role in the development of emotions and pattern recognition. Memories, however, which one would think is an essential part of habits, are stored in the hippocampus of the brain. And decision-making, on the other hand, happens in a different part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. So habits, memories and decisions – which all play a part in the setting and achieving of goals – actually live in three different parts of the brain.
While one would assume memory is an essential component of habits – you remember how to do a routine task and do it from memory — that is not true at all. In fact, even people incapable of forming new memories (due to injury or illness affecting the hippocampus) can still learn new habits. This was discovered when people with anterograde amnesia – incapable of forming new memories ever again – were able to form new habits.
Case in point. About 20 years ago, a man by the name of Eugene suffered an illness and the fever impacted his hippocampus. After he recovered, doctors realized that Eugene no longer had the ability to form new memories. Eugene would never again be able to remember anything new, even though he could remember things from the past. Oddly, though, Eugene was able to “learn” a simple memory game thanks to his ability to form habits. As an experiment, his doctor gave him two different colored objects, one of them marked with “correct” on the bottom. Then Eugene was asked to choose one object and turn it over to see if it said “correct” on the bottom. It would take a person with a functional memory just one try to learn which color object said “correct” on the bottom. Eugene didn’t have a memory, so it took him longer – but eventually over dozens of trials he was able to habitually choose the right anyway, to a 95% degree of accuracy even though he never consciously remembered ever doing the experiment and could not explain why he was choosing the correct object. That’s because memory lives independently from habits in the brain.
That is good news in many respects. Habits allow us to function and perform routine tasks without any conscious reasoning. Brushing teeth. Getting dressed. Even driving a car. Indeed, a person can drive all the way home from work and not remember a second of that drive. The driver was able to drive safely – without having an accident or breaking any traffic laws – even though he was only marginally consciously aware. That’s because habits require no conscious attention. They will persist unless consciously disrupted. Cues that become associated with a response will continue to elicit that response, regardless of the response’s effectiveness in the environment. This allows routines to make life a lot simpler and less stressful.
But this is bad news when it comes to trying to break an undesirable habit. All habits live in the same part of the brain and work the same way. As we said, cues that become associated with a response will continue to elicit that response, regardless of the response’s effectiveness in the environment. That makes breaking a bad habit much harder. That is why habits seem more powerful and persistent than determination and will power. It’s because habits are on auto-pilot while determination and will power require conscious thought at all times of the day and night. In a sense, the auto-pilot part of the brain works against the part of the brain that requires conscious thought when trying to stop a bad habit. Routines are hardwired in our brains, and it is difficult to remove or undo that hardwiring.
Build Systems to Break Bad Habits
To end a bad habit, we must replace it with something more productive moving forward. For that, we can turn to scientific, evidence-based methods such as behavior modification to build new systems. Systems are comprised of strategies and processes that circumvent bad habits and build good habits in order to make progress. As James Clear explains in Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, “all big things come from small beginnings. The seed of every habit is a single, tiny decision. But as that decision is repeated, a habit sprouts and grows stronger. Roots entrench themselves and branches grow. The task of breaking a bad habit is like uprooting a powerful oak within us. And the task of building a good habit is like cultivating a delicate flower one day at a time.”
Consider this scenario. David is a workaholic and it is causing friction at home. David’s goal is to manage his time better at work in order to get home in time for dinner with his family. But he has a bad habit that is interfering with his goal: being distracted by his phone due to text messages, emails and social media alerts. If David doesn’t break this bad habit, he will never achieve his goal. That could have serious, long-term repercussions in his personal and professional life. To stop being distracted by and wasting time on his phone, first David must:
1. Recognize the Habit Triggers
It is critically important to identify the triggers that initiate the repeated behavior of a habit. By eliminating the trigger, the habit is hobbled. Instead, replace the old triggers with new ones to build new habits. For example, if the goal is to spend less time on the phone dealing with texts and social media, David can turn off all notifications and silence the pings.
Adding a simple reward reinforces a habit well done. As a reward, David can allow himself 15 minutes to check text messages and social media notifications at lunch and again before leaving the office. By silencing the phone the rest of the time, David’s work flow is not interrupted by pings and dings 10 times every hour. This allows him to focus, be more productive and get done with his work that much sooner.
2. Find an Accountability Partner
Once an old bad habit is identified and a new good one is in place, find a trusted accountability partner to check in regularly and provide support when tempted to revert to the bad habit. Belonging and community helps to dampen the bad habit further and reinforce the good one. For David, that might mean asking a coworker in the office to send a text with a photo of his family each time he sees David scrolling on his phone. That will remind him that he needs to wrap up his work so he can get home to his family in time for dinner.
Next week, we will look at a series of other behavior modifying steps that can help one achieve goals and disrupt bad habits that stand in the way of that. In the meantime, get started. Figure out what SMART goal you want to achieve and if there are any bad habits standing in the way of that. And then we will provide some additional strategies to ensure success. So stay tuned!
Quote of the Week
“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” James Clear
© 2023, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
The post Battling Bad Habits, Part 1 first appeared on Monday Mornings with Madison.