Habit formation – strategies

We are driven subconsciously by our habits. Yes, all our day today activities are majorly governed by our habits. These habits are ingrained in our nervous system for years. Habits are generally formed by repetition of the same activities multiple times.

We are comfortable to the activities that are familiar to us. Our habits work on those activities in an auto pilot mode. We don’t need to have a conscious effort to perform the action.

Habit change: At our conscious level, we know that we own both good and bad habits. Habits are hard to erase. It requires discipline and dedicated effort. This is because; you are attempting to change your own self. Change is not easy & brain shows resistance for the changes. Brain is designed to work in the least resistance path mode which is nothing but your comfort zone.

We need to have equally an opposite force of similar magnitude to go through the change phase. The duration of the change phase is usually within a month if we follow the protocols correctly.

Opposing force: When one wants to form a new habit or change the existing bad habit then he needs to go against the normal function of the brain. It is a process of establishing and rewiring the brain to the brand new neural path. This is an effort for the brain and it does not happen naturally.

One can supply the opposing force of parallel magnitude by his motivation. Motivation is a wilful action. But, in general motivation does not sustain for a long time for most of us. We are motivated to do workouts three times in a week after seeing an amazing fitness transformation of our neighbour. We start our workouts with lot of enthusiasm at the beginning but after few weeks, we go completely off track.

Reward based Motivation: For the motivation to sustain, it is important to get the motivation based on the rewards.  Somehow, the reward centre of the brain has to be activated whenever you attempt to build a new habit or change the existing habit. The brain has to experience the reward. In other words, we have to feel the rewards. Motivation based on the external trigger will not become sustainable like in case of neighbour fitness transformation example. Unarguably, it is a good start point to build a new habit but then we need to quickly work on our internal reward circuit to go through the change phase.

Two step process: Recognising reward is a two-step process. During the beginning phase of the change process, you may not able to see the result or benefit. In case of fitness transformation, the body has an inbuilt intelligence with a time constant associated with it. It requires some adaptation period before the body undergoes a change. So, during the beginning stage, we need to use the visualisation or creative imagination. Picture yourself and use the creative imagination to see every details of your transformed body, say after three months. How would you feel as you go through this visualisation process? This is the first level of reward activation for the brain to stay motivated.

Secondly, do not look for the monumental changes when you want to see the changes that are taking place within you. Most of us do the mistake of looking for a big transformation. Instead, look for a simple minimal change/reward. That is good enough to trigger the reward centre of the brain and to keep up your motivation. So, work on the reward base motivation to change your habits!!