September 2020 - The KeepWell Mark Wellness Roundup
Making Habits Happen
“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character” – Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
We, as human beings are experiencing an unprecedented period of uncertainty, anxiety and overwhelm. Covid-19 has changed people’s approach to living – their behaviours and their routine. To support our wellbeing, we must equip ourselves with an understanding of habits – what they are, why they are important, and how to incorporate them into our life. We must know how to build positive habits and remove bad habits.
A habit is an automatic behavioural pattern or response to an environmental cue or trigger (Verplanken & Arts, 1999; Wood & Neal, 2009). Picture a dark hallway upon opening the door late in the evening; the first thing you do, automatically, without thinking, is turn and switch on the light switch to illuminate where you are standing. The environmental cue was the darkness, and your brain unconsciously decided to flip the switch without over-thinking it. It has happened many, many times – a repeated process. It has become wired and ingrained in the brain and is now a normal behavioural response to that situation without having to think about anything prior to doing the simple task. This is a habit.
The more daily habits we have, the less thinking our brain needs to do, as they are automated responses to triggers. Our brain can save its energy stores for complex decision making and other mentally arduous activities - this is ‘energy saving’ for our head.
In recent years, there have been many excellent books written on habit-building from authors such as James Clear (Atomic Habits), Carol Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success), Nathalie Hermann (The Art of Good Habits: Health, Love, Presence and Prosperity) and Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) – all worth reading. Habits will give you back time and help you manage time better, a valuable commodity for us.
The key is to wire in good habits and weed out the bad ones. Make the habits tiny and easy to do so you will do them too. BJ Fogg, of Stanford, talks about these tiny behaviours that require little effort, and came up with a model called B-MAP. To make a behaviour or tiny habit happen, there needs to be enough motivation, ability, and an effective and timely prompt to make it happen. Think of the facemask etiquette for Covid-19 now seen everywhere in Ireland.
Scott Adams, of ‘Dilbert’ fame, talks about how habit stacking can improve your health, wealth, and happiness. Small changes can change your life, for the better. Think compound interest - and creating that flywheel effect of momentum, of habit upon habit. As an example, if you have a healthy breakfast after a good morning routine upon waking up then this positive start charges your day for success.
Habit building changes our behaviour, and now is a time when behaviours and routines have been drastically altered. It is not difficult to make habits happen. Daily habits can be amazingly easy to do, and do not take long to implement. The key is consistency and sticking the course - so that these become automatic. It is all about the journey as they say. The legendary San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh once said that “the score takes care of itself”. It is all about the process, the journey. Build better habits.
Exercises to bring habits into your life today
Are there some good habits you want to start? Write down 3.
Are there some bad habits you want to stop? Write down 3.
What positive habit have you built over the Covid-19 pandemic period? Explain how you will keep this going now – in three lines.
Hauora is a company that provides bespoke, interactive online and onsite seminars, workshops and longer-term programmes - to improve physical, mental, social and occupational wellbeing. We aim to instil good habits and eliminate bad habits. There are many reasons as to why habits can fail. This is why Hauora have created a habit building formula to forge better habits and make them stick – ‘HAPPEN’ – “Make habits happen with Hauora, a whole person wellbeing company”.