Ready to bReak a habit?
In my upcoming book, I discuss both bad and good habits. Here is a modified excerpt. If you would like to get rid of an unproductive practice or start a new healthy one, perhaps the following will be helpful for you.
Much research provides life-changing advice on breaking habits and improving your life. Thousands of people do it every day. Be the hero of your own story and improve.
My father was a heavy smoker most of his life. During the 1950s and 1960s, smoking was a cool thing to do. People like Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr. smoked on live television and during concerts. Famous actor James Dean usually had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. How could one be cooler than the Rebel Without A Cause? The same goes for Steve McQueen. I know if you were born after the 80s, you probably don’t know any of these characters, but trust me, they were hip, and like so many, they seemed to look good with a cigarette between their fingers.
My father was a cool guy. He wore tailored suits and only one expensive brand of shoe. In those days, suit pants had about a one-inch cuff at the bottom of the leg. When none was available, his cuffs made a functional ashtray for his Marlboros. Like so many of his era, dad ended up with and died from emphysema. His lungs were destroyed, and the miserable sound of his wheezing and gasping for air still haunts me. Lung disease is a slow, heartbreaking way to die.
But I was proud of my dad. After smoking fifty years, he quit. It was too late to save his health, but he overcame his debilitating habit nonetheless, and I was proud of him for doing so. If my father could break a fifty-year habit, anyone could change an ingrained pattern. Dad got his disease one cigarette at a time, and he quit one cancer stick at a time as well. Your habits do not have to define who you are; they reveal what you do.
Tiny habits add up quickly and become helpful or hurtful to your life goals. Allow me to describe my morning routine.
I wake up each morning whenever the light begins to stream through the blinds next to my bed. I reach over to my nightstand and turn on the light. Then I use the remote to turn on more illumination on my ceiling fan. I throw my legs over the side of the bed, rub my eyes, and lean over to slightly open the blinds enough to allow even more brightness into the room. I know some of you are shuddering to imagine all this light suddenly invading your morning routine. My wife always preferred it to be darker during the awakening process, gradually increasing light as she became more lucid. The struggle between us was real.
I then do one of two things. If I can wait to go potty, I immediately make my bed. I hate to leave my room with my bed unmade. Like Admiral William H. McRaven, who wrote the great little book, “Make Your Bed,” I find dressing my bed to be my first big win of the day, so it is part of my habitual morning routine. If necessary, I head for the throne and then return to the side of the bed. From there, I brush my teeth, take my medicines, shower, dress and talk to Alexa about the weather. Then I bound down the stairs to make my cup of Joe. As the elixir brews, I empty the dishwasher, clean countertops, and perform small kitchen tasks. Cup of java in hand, I head into my devotion, reading, writing chair where I read the Bible, parts of a book or two, catch up emails, and finally, begin to write.
My goal is to have a productive day – every day. A good day for me starts with about ten to twelve small but essential habits. These tiny habits are crucial because, put together; they form the beginning of a good day. This routine is the most productive manner for Don Hamilton to start a high-yielding day.
In the exceptional book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, the author explains that habits result from three factors: Cue, Routine, and Reward.
(Duhigg, Charles.The Power of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Random House Trade Paper Books, New York, 2016)
A Cue is something, someone, or someplace that triggers a particular behavior. We don’t do things, especially habits, in a vacuum. A Cue can be certain smells, locations, emotional dispositions, social situations, and other factors to which we attach repeated action. For example, my body starts waking up when natural light enters the windows. That is a Cue for me to start my day. The Cue is often the result of identifying a Reward that requires certain behaviors to achieve.
Another Cue for me is the smell of popcorn in a movie theater. That heavenly scent is my trigger to spend fifteen times what it’s worth to chow down on a buttery bucket of one of my favorite foods. The smell is my Cue, my trip to the concession stand is the Routine, and pure joy is the Reward! I never go to the theater without purchasing popcorn. There is a Routine associated with every habit.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is Reward. We do certain things because there is a prize awaiting its completion. My numerous morning habits Reward me with positive feelings about the start of my day. Habits form because there is a perceived Reward awaiting their completion.
It is important to note that nearly a dozen habits I’ve formed lead me to my daily goal. One practice builds on another. Individually, none of them are very significant but multiply their combination, and you have effective results. Bad habits play out the same.
Identify a habit you want to break and filter it through the Cue, Routine, Reward process. When you perform this analysis, you will better understand why you do certain things habitually. Diagnose your habit, and then you can apply some prescriptions to help change it.
Modify or remove the Cue. I used to eat a large bowl of buttery popcorn nearly every night. This habit did not help my waistline. My Cues were the remote control and my easy chair. Eating popcorn was part of the Routine through which I Rewarded myself for a long day at work.
Modify or cancel the Routine. You can accomplish Improvements by making what James Clear calls 1% changes. Small changes add up to make a big difference. Instead of watching television and eating every night, I started reading, practicing the guitar, and making phone calls to relatives and friends. (Atomic Habits by James Clear is a terrific read).
Determine if the Reward you are seeking is what you “really” want. When a person drinks too much alcohol regularly, they do so for the reward, which is often relaxation and a sense of euphoria. If the prize you seek is relaxation, there are many ways other than drinking too much to achieve that goal. If, however, you like being high every night, you will continue the habit until the consequences are harmful enough to make you want to change the pattern.
Remember, minor changes make a big difference. You can gain great rewards through series of seemingly insignificant habits. Start changing little bad habits and creating good habits 1% at a time. I’ll bet there is one small change you could make right now that will have made your life better a year from now.
Be the hero of your own story.
Live Inspired!
Don Mark
