The Difficulty of Changing Habits
People get used to doing some things to the point where they do those
actions almost automatically, and with little mental effort. Without
habits, a person would be faced with a constant barrage of choices to
make. Should I get out of bed after I wake up in the morning? What
next? Do I go the bathroom and brush my teeth? Do I got the kitchen
and put toast in the toaster? What is the route I should follow? If
someone says "good morning" to me, will I answer back? What will I
say?
When you develop habits, you are relegating some of your decision
making to your subconscious. This leaves your conscious thought free
to pursue other matters. So, for example, as you are brushing your
teeth you might be planning your agenda for the day ahead. You didn't
need to give thought to the questions I listed above, because you
decided them long ago. As you develop habits, you increase your
overall capacity to think and act.
There are two main problems with habits: they are hard to form, and
hard to break.
If you can remember back to your childhood, think of how hard it was
to remember to brush your teeth in the morning. At first you probably
didn't do it very consistently, but eventually you reached the point
where you rarely forget. In building that habit, you probably had
someone (a parent, perhaps) reminding you frequently.
Sometimes a habit is counter-productive. You might discover some
counter-productive habits if you review your own behavior
periodically. Then you would have the reverse problem of stopping
yourself from doing something that you would do almost automatically.
Here are some typical problems with habit formation:
- Old habits that "stand in the way": When you want a new habit to
replace an old one, you may nevertheless tend to do the old behavior
(because it is automatic). So before you can build the new habit, you
have the challenge of breaking the old one.
- Lack of trust; insecurity: As I pointed out when describing the
"toothbrush habit", it is very helpful to have someone who will give
you reminders. Now consider the new habit you want to adopt, and ask
yourself who (if anyone) is likely to be present when you need to be
reminded. Can you trust that person enough to reveal your goal to
them? Is your situation within your home or workplace (or wherever
you would practice this habit) sufficiently secure that you can risk
revealing your wish to improve?
- Unrealistic expectations: A person may mistakenly expect dramatic
results. Or they may not know how soon to expect a noticeable
improvement. For many habits, only the repeated application of the
habit is effective and the results accumulate gradually.
Unfortunately, people have a tendency to give up prematurely.
- Weak Connection to the desired goal: This item is very similar to
"unrealistic expectations", except that rather than merely being slow
at producing the desired results the habit may not produce them at
all. Rather, the habit might produce different results, which--though
those results might also be desirable--are not what the individual was
seeking. There is a peculiar tendency of people to drop good habits
that aren't yielding what the individual had in mind, even though they
are good habits.
- Missing prerequisite or supporting habits: For any habit, you need
to determine what other habits, knowledge, or skills must be developed
first. For example, suppose you are a businessman who resolves that
it would be a good idea to meet regularly with your staff. Those
meetings could easily be scheduled. But you are not in the habit of
keeping a schedule, and you are busy--so of course you always forget
to meet with them. In order to develop your new habit, you need to
first adopt the habit of keeping and following a schedule.
- Missing other pieces of the strategy: To break old habits, it is
easiest to work on just one or two new habits at any one time. But
when one has a major goal, the incremental approach may simply not
work. Working on just one or two habits may produce no meaningful
results by themselves, and unless the person has a lot of faith in
their long term plan, they will just give up.
- Implications of the resolution are not well thought out: A new
habit often begins with a resolution, and these resolutions are often
platitudes to which one might easily agree. They fail because the
individual hasn't understood the implications. Suppose a person
resolves to be honest and open. Does this mean that they no longer
tell "white lies"? What about withholding unpleasant information?
How about disclosing information that the other person doesn't really
need? Unless the person has thought through exactly how their
behavior would be different from past practice, and examined a variety
of situations, the new habit will not become a reality. They will pay
lip service to the principle, but not do it.
- Inappropriate attitude: Sometimes a person's attitude becomes
misaligned with their core motivation. For example, consider a child
who is feeling badly because they are doing poorly in school and have
no friends. As a defense mechanism, they may not just minimize their
expectations, but try to avoid the pain by telling themselves that
they don't care. To prove this to the world they act cool and aloof,
and in the classroom they are disruptive. As you can see, this
attitude is counterproductive to their true motivation. Even if they
tried to adopt better habits, their attitude would end up sabotaging
these methods to the point where they were useless. Their failure
would become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
For some tips to overcome these problems, click
here.
