"It's force of habit!" is an expression we use countless times in our daily lives, in an automatic, instinctive way that in reality if we think about it and reflect, a habit really has a lot of force!
And what is a habit? In the Portuguese dictionary one of the definitions we find is: "tendency or behavior, usually unconscious, which results from the frequent repetition of certain acts; routine; automatism". It is really an act or behavior that we repeat unconsciously, most of the time over a period of years. And this is why it is so difficult for us to change our habits!
In a small "immersion in the world of habits", through the reading of the book "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, I had the opportunity to learn more about this topic that may seem less obvious, but that has much of interest and usefulness for our daily lives, personal and/or professional, especially if we want to make changes in our way of facing daily life and even to achieve certain goals.
The process of automating acts or behaviors is a beneficial process for us as human beings, because in this way we can "free" our brain, our mind, for actions that really imply thought, reflection, that involve energy. The creation of habits is nothing more than an efficient way of "tidying up" our mind and making it spend less energy on certain actions. Therefore, throughout our lives we automate behaviors that arise in response to a certain situation, and this happens practically without us realizing it. As we know, throughout life we acquire not only good habits, but also bad habits. This classification is up to each one of us, it is an evaluation that we make of our automated behaviors, based on the goals we have set. For example, we consider it a good habit to do stretches and some low-impact exercises when we wake up just before breakfast, and we consider it a bad habit if we smoke a cigarette when we wake up, if our goal is to follow a healthy lifestyle.
It's important to realize that habits can work for us as well as against us, so it's important to notice details, small behaviors or actions that are part of a larger habit. And if we really want to turn bad habits into good habits, we have to make conscious changes in our behavior.
But how can we change such deep-rooted behaviors? It is not easy, but it is possible.
Being patient and resilient is also part of the process.
Make small changes at a time, always trusting in the result and not backing down: if I exercise my arms every morning, consecutively for 5 weeks, I probably won't notice the results until then, but at the end of a year, I will have no doubt of the results achieved - the effects of small habits accumulate over time.
Here are some rules for creating better habits:
1 Make the habit evident - become aware of current habits, write them down, classify them, and list them to a place/moment; introduce the new behavior right after an old behavior; create an enabling environment to induce new behavior
2 Make the habit attractive - associate an action we want to do with another action we need to do; create a motivating ritual: do something we like immediately before a difficult habit
3 Make the habit easy - decrease the number of steps that separate us from our good habits; prepare the space around us to make future actions easier; 2 minutes rule: reduce the size of our habits until we can accomplish them in 2 minutes (we must first master the beginning of a habit, because the habit must first be created, to then be improved); it is more important the number of times we have already accomplished a habit than how long it has been happening
4 Make the habit rewarding - use reinforcement: as soon as we perform the new behavior, we should give ourselves a reward; take note of how often we perform a habit and don't break the series/sequence at all; don't fail twice: whenever we forget to perform a habit, we should immediately return to that behavior.
The advantage of habits is that we can do things without thinking about them, but their disadvantage is that we can also easily fail to notice small details, some of them mistakes or failures, which can take devastating dimensions in our daily lives. Thus, it is important to reflect and be critical about our behavior, our performance, and the direction we want to take.
This process of change is continuous, there is not exactly a goal, the bottom line is that we always try to do better, more effectively and efficiently.
Here the process counts, the method is the most important, because small changes lead to big results!
