Changing Habits A Little Bit

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

If we want emotional flexibility to be at the level of indicative lesson, and so that our behavior is consistent with our values, then we need to turn our intentional behavior into habits and deeply rooted them so that we no longer worry about their intentionality.

The beauty of specially cultivated habits, aligned with our values and associated “want” motivations, is that they continue to work effortlessly, whether we pay attention to them or not. The ability to form habits based on values not only strengthens our intentions, but also frees up mental resources to complete the necessary tasks.

Habit is an automatic response to context that we often see. Every day we encounter dozens, if not hundreds, of familiar contexts and react to them automatically and unconsciously. But when we intently find ourselves in these situations and look for opportunities to act in accordance with our values, we use them to create our best habits.

In their best-selling book, Nudge: How to Improve Our Decisions about Health, Well-being, and Happiness, economist Richard Thaller and law professor Kess Sunstein show how to influence the behavior of others through carefully crafted choices, or, as they call it, "choice architectures." Some choices in the architecture of choice can help you change your own habits. Let's get to know them better.

1. Set up your own environment so that when you are hungry, under stress, in a hurry, the choice that best suits your values would be the easiest.

Again, an example with food and weight loss. The next time you go to the supermarket for groceries, choose from all the products that are healthy. And if in the evening you are tempted to feed yourself with something tasty and harmful, then the environment you set up will help you: there will be no tasty, but no harmful.

Our brains allow us to influence our environment without waiting for it to affect us. This makes it possible to create a space between impulse and action. If there is a habit that you want to change, think about what is holding you back and remove it.

2. Add new behavior to the habit.

If you add a new specific action in addition to a habit - for example, a new product to your diet - it can successfully transform the new action into habitual behavior.

You simplify the formation of new behavior by adding it to the usual, that is, you do not need to spend colossal efforts on some changes in routine behavior.

3. Pre-commitment: Anticipate obstacles and prepare for them with an if-then strategy.

For example, you know that if the alarm rings at 6:00 am, you want to turn your back and sleep instead of going for a run. The night before, tell yourself that if you want more sleep, you will still go for a run despite being sleepy. After all, despite a few minutes of irritation, in an hour you will feel much better, starting the day with exercise.

Even an indifferent brain will remember this “if-then” commitment, so the more you climb for a run, the easier it will be and eventually become a habit.

4. Obstacle Course: Expand the positive vision by thinking about potential problems.

Positive fantasies release gas from the bottle, spraying our energy, which is needed to maintain motivation and real progress.

Those who achieved the best results did so through a combination of optimism and realism. It is important to believe that you can achieve your goal, but you also need to pay attention to possible obstacles.

By imagining the future and clearly assessing the current reality, you seem to unite them. A mental path is created that contains obstacles and your plans for overcoming them. So you will move on to what is to the desired goal.

The article appeared thanks to the book "Emotional Agility" by Susan David