The desire for self-improvement leads many of us on a constant quest to acquire new habits that might lead to fulfillment and happiness. Entrepreneurs and creators are even more prone to this because it’s compelling to believe that great success can be achieved with better habits. But why is it so easy to pick up a bad habit and so difficult to stick with a good one?
In an effort to improve myself this year I decided to form a new habit - practicing being in the present moment as often as possible.
This motivation came when I first heard about Eckhart Tolle’s book The Power of Now from a recovering alcoholic venture capitalist that quit drinking, changed jobs, and reprioritized his whole life all after reading that one book.
Naturally I had to read it. This is a story about how I changed my thinking around how new habits are formed.
The first week I put a date in the corner of my white board. The day I became more acutely aware of the illusion of time. The day I first felt the satisfaction of accepting the present as is without the impulse to change it.
The second week I found myself walking into a FedEx delivery guy on the street, oblivious to my surroundings because I was entranced with the texture of the envelope I was holding, an envelope that would have otherwise found its way to my trash bin if it wasn’t for the compelling suggestion of the narrator to find my way to the present moment by focusing intently on what I was doing, seeing, or in this case, touching.
By the third week, however, I regressed. I had forgotten about the book and the lessons that only a few days earlier profoundly shifted my thinking. So much for forming a new habit.
Was my brain so fickle that the slightest bit of distraction could wipe away significant epiphanies? Was I simply consuming too much other information - podcasts, news, tweets, music, other books - democratizing my cognition to the point where I was no longer able to retain anything of meaning?
Fortunately not long after I was able to get back on track. I became lost in the lessons of the book again, rereading entire sections so that I could vividly connect them to other memories that validated what I was learning.
Maybe it was about repetition and reinforcement after all. ‘If you don’t use it’, as it were. But I couldn’t very well go on reading the same book forever. I would have to find other ways to remind myself to be in the present.
I kept coming back to how liberating it felt every time I remembered to be ‘in the now’. Waiting in the slow moving queue at the grocery store I would feel myself getting frustrated with the monotony of waiting when suddenly a moment of awareness came. I remembered.
Remembered that frustration is merely a result of the thoughts I’m having at any given moment, thoughts that are independent of my being. I could just as easily instruct myself to have a completely different thought or, better yet, no thought at all.
When I did remember, the frustration or anger would melt away. Like the first few seconds of what you feel when you jump into a pool on a hot day or collapse on your soft bed from exhaustion.
At first I did use the book as my daily reminder. A few minutes with Eckhart would translate into at least a few moments of awareness throughout the day. But then I found new ways to trigger my awareness.
Months before I had started practicing gratitude in the shower. I would do it right before brushing my teeth so that the new habit would form from associating it with an existing one, a trick I learned from reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.
Now I simply added another step to my routine, this time after brushing. I would close my eyes and only think about the present moment. I would focus on the streams of lukewarm water that were enveloping me.
It was a nice feeling. Not a particularly interesting one, and certainly not unique in itself. But what was unique was my appreciation for an otherwise ordinary moment.
Each morning I would go through the same set of exercises and their effect on me didn’t wane. I started to appreciate the way my brain worked for the very same reason I scorned it earlier. I could enjoy the feeling of the lukewarm water with the same intensity every day precisely because my brain could only retain sensory memory in the short term.
A paradox worthy of Schrödinger.
Psychologists have differing opinions on how to form new habits. Some say it takes 21 days of repetition, others cite the need for a cue, routine, reward loop, but I subscribe to more of a realist view. To me it’s a cycle, not an absolute, like any other wellness pursuit (e.g.: the classic eat well and work out platitude).
It starts with awareness and a desire to change or improve. Sometimes you’re strong and consistent and you persevere, and other times the resistance inside of you wins and you regress. But as you remember the benefits of the new habit, recall the feeling of satisfaction that comes with it, the moments of regression inevitably shorten and a new habit is formed.
In your pursuit to be better it is more productive to treat a setback not as a personal failure but as a natural step in the evolution of a more improved self. Keep this in mind as you work to form your next habit and you’ll find that real transformation is very much so within your grasp.
"how" - Google News
December 07, 2019 at 03:21AM
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How New Habits Are Actually Formed - Forbes
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