The Mechanics Of Habit Formation
Our habits are driven by a 3-part loop in sequence: trigger (the stimulus that starts the habit), routine (the doing of the habit and behaviour itself) and reward (the benefit associated with the behaviour).
Each repetition of this behavior pattern, it becomes more ingrained in your brain until it eventually becomes automatic—a habit.
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Research has found that using the phrase “I can’t” results in decreased self-control when compared to using the words “I don’t”.
When trying to break bad habits say “I don’t [bad habit]” instead of “I can’t [bad habit]” .
Bad habits don’t go away overnight. But, you can use strategies to give you that extra boost of self-confidence and self-control required to change.
Understand that sometimes you will fail and sometimes you’ll succeed. But no matter how long it takes to fail and get back up again, your patience and perseverance will soon pay off.
“The secret to permanently breaking any bad habit is to love something greater than the habit.”
It gives you an automatic response to react to your cravings and makes it easier to replace a bad habit with a good one:
- Identify the scenario that usually triggers your bad habit.
- Specify a different response to the trigger. Ideally, this should be a good habit that would replace and prevent you from falling into the temptation.
- Combine steps 1 and 2 into an “if-then” format.
Mindfulness practice helps to weaken the link between the craving and the bad behaviour:
- Next time you’re hit with an urge to do the bad habit, take a step back and be aware of the sensations of the trigger in your body.
- Take note of where you were and when the cravings started, as well as who were you with and what happened leading to it.
- Keep a short journal of your progress and take quick notes of the events that take place on the days you act on the bad habit versus the days you don’t.
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Be specific on how you’ll implement goals into your daily life. Examining how you’ve responded to the situation in the past and determining what you can do to avoid reverting to the old habit, might be all it takes to break the habit.
It’s easier to react based on something you’ve already planned out in the past versus trying to come up with a new plan on the fly.
The process of stopping bad habits is fundamentally different from forming new ones.
- Creating a habit requires encoding a new set of automatic behaviors: the brain learns causal relationships between triggers that prompt action and the associated outcome.
- The popular belief is that the key to breaking a bad habit is replacing it with another habit. But this doesn't always work.
Most of the time, bad habits are simply a way of dealing with stress and boredom.
Everything from biting your nails to overspending on a shopping spree to drinking every weekend to wasting time on the internet can be a simple response to stress and boredom.
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