With the holidays settling down and school break is now approaching, it is the perfect time to set new habits and resolutions. And what’s a better resolution than trying to better yourself? But, sometimes it’s hard to set new habits for yourself. Sometimes it’s a lack of willpower, maybe it’s because you’re too forgetful. But most of the time, it’s all about your mentality.
The first thing that you need to do to combat bad or old habits is to identify them. Think about all those little things that you do that get in the way of being your best you. For example, Emma wants to work out more. She wants to get her body ready for summer. But whenever she has the urge to go and work out, her car drives her to the Taco Bell drive-thru. This is an example of a bad habit. Obviously, if Emma wants to get this said “summer body” she has to stop. When we’re consistently doing something time and time again, it becomes muscle memory. But when you start doing something new, your brain starts to work again. Your frontal lobe is doing more calculations on how this new thing is affecting you. Which brings us to the next big step.
Since you know what habit you are now making and realizing it’s maybe not the best, you can confuse your brain from doing it. What you do is disrupt your brain. Throw those bad habits off track. So, for instance, instead of Emma grabbing her car keys and going out, she grabs her house keys instead and goes for a walk around the block. This will set your mind up to make a new habit. And, it is proven to be a more effective way to combat it. See, when you just stop something and don’t replace it, you are more likely to get back into it. Going cold turkey will inevitably make you spiral further into said habit. When you replace it, it causes an interference and prevents your brain from going on autopilot.
Next, you keep this new habit simple. If Emma wants to immediately go to the gym and start doing all these new exercises and workouts, she might end up burnt out and no longer want to do it again. So Emma starts walking, keeping it simple. Then you progress as you start seeing improvement with your focus. After a couple of days, she starts doing jumping jacks and lunges. Then she buys some weights and integrates them into her new workout. Then she reaches part of her final goal, which is going to the gym.Emma can see that this is not a quick process, but she’s satisfied with herself. She started small and got to where she wanted to be before, and she’s not feeling intense burnout. She’s been working out consistently for a while now.
This is now her new habit. Going for a walk and then hitting the gym. By the summer, she should definitely have that summer body! She rewards herself sometimes by going to that same restaurant that used to and still does bring her comfort. You can apply all these breaking and making skills to school. Instead of picking up your phone, substitute it for a book. And don’t forget to reward yourself! The little things matter.
Happy New years!
https://mcgovern.mit.edu/2022/09/07/making-and-breaking-habits/
