[Issue #32 | Part 1] Happy New Year - Now What?
An exploration on how habits form, why New Year’s resolutions fail, and how to make long-lasting, positive changes
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
It happens every year. A cycle contained within a cycle contained within a cycle - a cycle we humans lovingly refer to as time.
Time keeps passing, one second marching after the next, in tight fashion. Time has no opinion. Time holds no resentment. Time doesn’t wait for me or you or Santa Clause or Jesus Himself. Time is the unseen currency of our world - none of us is immune to the passing of its precious moments and yet, how often do we sit to purposefully reflect upon how we spend the limited time we’re given?
While on my holiday break, I’ve spent quite a bit of time reflecting on my use of time and where I put my energy - meaning, I’ve done some introspective diving into my habits and routines. After completing intensive PTSD therapy with UCLA’s Operation Mend last year, I’ve been a lot more curious - a lot more open - to making some much needed positive changes in my life. Changes I’ve wanted to make for quite some time, yet, for whatever reason, haven’t (we’ll tackle the strange paradox of the resistance to change).
Then I read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and it changed how I perceive time, which then meant changing how I spend time. Once you’re aware, there is no u-turn.
My curiosity led me to research habits and behavior change because of my past addictions and current struggle with an eating disorder - I knew I wanted to change my behavior, and I knew that meant acknowledging some uncomfortable (and painful) truths about myself and why I make the choices I do, even when I know the choice I make, in the long run, is not good for me).
And that’s what I want to share with you this week - and what better time to do so than the start of a brand new year? Welcome, 2023 - Aren’t we all just a tiny bit glad we’ve made it this far?
There are countless resources - books, articles, research studies, Ted Talks - that pull apart the reasons habits exist at all (Google pinged over 25 million results for “habit and behavior change books”), and more resources are being dedicated to studying habit and behavior change every year.
I’ve pulled some of this research together for the sake of this article (and next Thursday’s) and I think what you’re about to read may lead to a shift in how you perceive the time you’ve been given and why you make the choices you do (even without consciously realizing it).
But, first…
what is a habit?
A review paper, published in Health Psychology in 2013 by Benajmin Gardner, from the Health Behaviour Research Center, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health from the University of London, conducted an analysis focusing on the “use of ‘habit’ in understanding, predicting, and influencing health-related behaviour,” and the paper defines habit thusly:
“…within health psychology ‘habit’ is defined as a phenomenon whereby behaviour is prompted automatically by situational cues, as a result of learned cue-behaviour associations.”
Why resolutions fail
While there’s not anything inherently wrong with New Year’s Resolutions - after all, when we create those resolutions we really do intend on going to the gym 5 mornings a week. We really do intend to meal prep every Sunday. We really do intend to go to bed earlier and read a good book - but, creating these resolutions typically ends up a moot point in the end because, a lot of times, we aren’t able to follow through (over the long term), consistently, on these resolutions we’ve set up. And this cycle tends to lead us to a very real sense of failure.
You know the definition of insanity, right?
We know something has to change. Hell, maybe somethings have to change in order to ensure we stick to our values, principles, and prioritize our own goals.
And I don’t know about you, but when I believe I’ve failed at something, my shame spiral begins to spin and waft and I have to remember to tread lightly, dancing with the story in my head.
And then it occurred to me that the worst part of New Year’s Resolutions is me. Me, already knowing how this resolution thing is likely to go down - I’ll inevitably fail at following through on my own resolutions because of my own poor planning, lack of forethought or preparation for the unavoidable and sometimes uncontrollable obstacles life throws my way.
For me (and maybe for you), resolutions tend to end in disappointment, self-beration, and you guessed it - lots of shame.
The trouble is not new year’s resolutions, though.
The trouble is the lagging tally marks showcasing the person I’m drifting further from becoming each time I neglect to acknowledge who I want to be. I never used to look that far ahead. Honestly, I gave a lot of my life’s precious time away, white knuckling the shit out of life. A lot of my life’s time has been spent with me at the end of a frayed rope I’d mistaken for a lifeline. The person I’ve been for so long is who I’ve gotten used to being and the discomfort in changing that is, for me, nothing short of a living death.
Trying to build new habits, kick bad ones, or even make a minor adjustment, means we’ve acknowledged something needs to change, that something isn’t working as well as it could. To make these changes, though, requires an absence of shame, and to release the shame we feel about ourselves or our choices is no easy feat.
We’ve covered the topic of shame previously and un-luckily for us, shame tends to be an overly-powerful decider in the narratives (and stories) we tell ourselves - In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Dr. Brene Brown explains how shame and guilt are quite different in their goals - shame is the equivalent of the inner belief I am bad while guilt is I did something bad.
Dr. Brown states:
“Shame is about who we are, and guilt is about our behaviors. We feel guilty when we hold up something we’ve done or failed to do against the kind of person we want to be. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but one that’s helpful. When we apologize for something we’ve done, make amends to others, or change a behavior that we don’t feel good about, guilt is most often the motivator. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its effect is often positive while shame often is destructive. When we see people apologize, make amends, or replace negative behaviors with more positive ones, guilt is often the motivator, not shame. In fact, in my research, I found that shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can change and do better.
Doesn’t shame keep us in line? Along with many other professionals, I’ve come to the conclusion that shame is much more likely to lead to destructive and hurtful behaviors than it is to be the solution. Again, it is human nature to want to feel worthy of love and belonging. When we experience shame, we feel disconnected and desperate for worthiness. Full of shame or the fear of shame, we are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors and to attack or shame others. In fact, shame is related to violence, aggression, depression, addiction, eating disorders, and bullying.
So, if we are more likely to be successful in our endeavors of self-expansion, it’s in our best interest to consider our current routines and habits (not just the ones we wish to change but all of them) - in the final phase, we’ll use this list to guide us into a new (and anchored) routine (what Clear calls a system) and we may even find ourselves enjoying this process of self-compassion and experimentation more than brute force and shame.
Human behavior is deeply enmeshed in our surrounding environment and the cues that environment holds - researchers have found that our brains are incredible at passively absorbing environmental cues and context as a means of survival and identity, even if our brains cant remember a particular detail (as in cases of Alzheimer’s and dementia).
Habit & Environment
Researchers have found that habit loops are developed via environment and cue - that’s why when I know I want to become a better guitar player, leaving my guitars where I see them all the time helps remind me that I have a goal of becoming better at guitar.
Even more astounding, once researchers understood the habit loop, the study of habits became easier in some aspects while complicating our understanding of human behavior in others.
Below is a graphic I pulled from James Clear’s website illustrating the habit loop:
“The four stages of habit are best described as a feedback loop. They form an endless cycle that is running every moment you are alive. This “habit loop” is continually scanning the environment, predicting what will happen next, trying out different responses, and learning from the results. Charles Duhigg and Nir Eyal deserve special recognition for their influence on this image. This representation of the habit loop is a combination of language that was popularized by Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, and a design that was popularized by Eyal’s book, Hooked.” - James Clear, Atomic Habits, jamesclear.com
So, the major differences between habit and resolutions are in the way we approach them. With habit building, we look at making one small change instead of 10 huge ones. Resolutions, it seems, come at the cost of over-expectation from oneself.
This is great news! To know that our habits are related to, and even triggered by, our environment and situations means we can be more aware of where we are, what we’re doing, and if we’re enjoying the habit or wish to decrease or stop a habit, and maybe even make some environmental changes.
Clear also explains the importance or the types of people and environments in which we spend our time, stating:
“Proximity has a powerful effect on our behavior…”
“We pick up habits from the people around us. We copy the way our parents handle arguments, the way our peers flirt with one another, the way our coworkers get results…”
“When astronaut Mike Massimino was a graduate student at MIT, he took a small robotics class. Of the ten people in the class, four became astronauts. If your goal was to make it into space, then that room was about the best culture you could ask for. Similarly, one study found that the higher your best friend’s IQ at age eleven or twelve, the higher your IQ would be at age fifteen, even after controlling for natural levels of intelligence. We soak up the qualities and practices of those around us.”
So,
how do you go about building new habits in small, incremental ways that will stick over the long-term?
In an effort of shortening this essay into a more friendly and manageable length, we’ll answer that question and several more next week.
We’ll explore the science behind habits and hopefully gain a better understanding of why we do (and don’t do) what we do, beyond a simple “I wanted to” or “I didn’t want to.”
We’ll explore the why of our hesitance to change and how to apply all of this information in a practical and real way. And if you want to start a new habit, routine, change things, or quit others, you can do that with me!
Follow along as I document my own personal changes, missteps, and successes for this coming year!
I’d love to hear about your goals for this year and the habits needed to achieve those goals. Drop a comment or an email (simply reply to this post in your email app).
For this week
Next week, in Part 2, we’ll explore practical ways of finding the weak links in our habitual routines, and we’ll take a crack at making one tiny change.
So, for this week, I’ll leave you to ponder (and prep) for next week’s issue -
How much wiggle room or flex time is built into your sched for self-care?
What is one simple, singular thing you could do to increase feelings of gratitude, joy, or love?
What is one habit you’d like to decrease or break?
What is one habit you’d like to swap the bad habit for?
Keep those answers close by - Next week, we’ll dive deeper into how to break bad habits and replace them with good ones (your habits as defined by you, not me), and environment will play a huge role in establishing a new habit, or a new routine, or both.
The important take-a-way here is knowing that our environment has a hefty subconscious influence on our conscious minds as well as our unconscious habitual rituals and routines - like driving to the grocery store, or blinking (much of the process with driving to the store happens without us thinking much about it, and we blink automatically without thought).
As this explorative series continues, we’ll get into setting up a reachable, working plan to help align what we want (and value) with what our habits (and our systems) say we want with guidance drawn from BJ Fogg’s Behavioral Model.
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
-Warren Buffet
Loved this, "Time keeps passing, one second marching after the next, in tight fashion. Time has no opinion. Time holds no resentment. Time doesn’t wait for me or you or Santa Clause or Jesus Himself. Time is the unseen currency of our world - none of us is immune to the passing of its precious moments and yet, how often do we sit to purposefully reflect upon how we spend the limited time we’re given?"
So glad you are diving into habits and goals. For those of us working from home it becomes even more vital to build confidence inside to achieve our goals. I literally started stupid small this year for my goals.... making my bed each day (I'd say morning, but even that was too large a step :)
Thanks Adrian, and as always, your topic is relevant to me, right now! I’m trying to overcome some bad habits myself. The part about self care is a good reminder, I hardly ever set aside time for self care, which as we learned at UCLA is very important!