HOW TO LET GO OF OLD HABITS
Struggling to kick
deeply-ingrained negative patterns? Here’s how to do it the right way
American business magnate and philanthropist Warren
Buffett once said, “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too
heavy to be broken.” Our habits literally define us as people. We get so used
to being and doing and thinking life in some specific ways that it becomes
almost impossible to be able to transcend those defining habits, and thus
redefine ourselves in newer or better ways. As Swami Chinmayananda once said,
“Comfort comes as a guest, grows into a host and finally stays to enslave us.”
Our habits define our comfort zones. Any violation of those habitual ways
brings us discomfort, and most people experience agitation, stress and even
anxiety.
But none of this should make us believe that habits
are essentially unhealthy. We all have some habits that makes us proud, and
some habits which we wish we didn’t have. But like everything else, habits must
keep evolving. Even the best of habits, do need an honest evaluation. The test
is relevance and impact. Is it strengthening me as a person and teaching me
happiness, or is it making me rigid and edgy? Any habit, no matter how healthy
or pious, must do us well. If a habit or the attempt to follow it, is bringing
with it restlessness, agitation or poor health, it is time to introspect and
evolve. If we hang on to the comfort of our older ways, not ever attempting an
audit or adaptation, it begins to degenerate and sometimes even becomes toxic.
And the reason we fail to change our habits, is the
comfort we feel in our usual ways, even if they may be wrong, or sometimes even
harmful. The battle of big dreams, great success and lasting happiness is
always a battle against our own ingrained habits.
HABITS ARE OF THREE TYPES:
• Learnt physical patterns
• Consistent mental mannerisms
• Sustained unconscious tendencies
Together these
three get us trapped in our own habits. Repetition and attention is the fuel
that keeps habits going - both good and bad. Our habits keep prompting us into
certain ways of being and thinking, and thus the habits in turn get strengthened
more and more with repetition. And thus it goes on.
Of course, habits don’t change easily. Here are eight
ways how you can change situations that push you back in the spiral of old
habits.
LACK OF CONVICTION
Convictions are finally what guide our habits.
Convictions are deep driving beliefs that we have formed throughout our
lifetime. We may know and decide to change some habits, but what finally turns
it into behaviour is conviction — the principles based on which my brain
processes a certain piece of information or experience. For instance, I may
understand and have the informative wisdom of how risky smoking tobacco is to
my health. I may even want to quit. But I remain a smoker, because deep within
my conviction is the idea that smoking is my stress-buster. So, in other words,
the information we learn from various sources in the media, do not necessarily
become a conviction, and thus fail to change our habits. But, if we change the
conviction, we instantly change the habit.
Kick the habit: How does
one change one’s conviction? Repeated reminders work as wonders. For instance,
if you are trying to start off on a habit of daily workouts but are battling
sleep every morning, read daily about the benefits of being an early riser,
watch videos on importance of exercises regularly. Do this every single day.
Knowing doesn’t change our convictions. For that, repetition is inevitable.
When I repeatedly expose myself to newer ways of thinking, newer ways of doing
will follow.
WEAK WILLPOWER
As a race, we humans have come to take great pride in
our weak will. It is often said, “Nothing can stop a determined human being
from rising.” But, do we have the determination? People often say things like
‘promises are meant to be broken’. In other words, we have all licensed our own
minds from completely disregarding our own decisions. The mind is weak. So,
whether I decide to follow a new diet or give up foul language, it is
impossible for my mind to take it too seriously. Deep within, we all seem to
have accepted the fact that we can’t do it. And sadly, we are right.
Kick the habit: So, the
ability to change habits comes from the ability to do what we decide in small
ways. Take your decisions and words very seriously. Don’t ever use the snooze
button. You shouldn’t decide to wake up at 8 am and snooze five times between
7:45 and 8, well that is weak willpower. Fifteen minutes of extra snoozing does
not necessarily give us significantly more sleep, but it does weaken our
willpower silently over the years. So, be strict with your decisions, even if
it is difficult.
ABSENCE OF PURPOSE
Very often I meet people who want to adopt new habits
but have absolutely no clarity of purpose. There need to be rewards and
inspirations all along the way. This is extremely important. And this must not
come from a negative space, because that never lasts. For example, I meet many
women who want to lose weight because their husbands taunt them and it makes
them unhappy. Now, this kind of a negative approach is weak. It may make us
change a habit, but it will always be at the cost of more subtle and
detrimental habits such as anger, bitterness, urgency to prove oneself to
others, insecurity and using self-loathing as motivation.
Kick the habit: Remember
the purpose of changing habits is discovering the best version of who we
currently are. So, write down your purpose on a piece of paper and stick it on
your bathroom mirror. Read it every day as you brush your teeth. Allow it to
push you out of the comfort zone of your habits, and propel you into newer and
healthier habits.
FEAR OF NON-ACCEPTANCE
Sometimes, people do feel that the newer me may not
be acceptable to my near and dear ones. There is an innate fear of rejection
from those who are used to interacting with our older habits. But, other people’s
wrong habits must not make us stick to ours. After all, those who do not want
us to get rid of those aspects in us which no longer serve us, such people also
no longer serve us. We may continue to love them. But to hold onto unhealthy
ways because of such fears is unnecessary.
Kick the habit: But we
all need people. And our social needs must not be ignored. So, join a tribe.
The history of the world has grown in tribes. We all lived as tribes and
evolved lasting cultural habits, now called traditions, through our innate
tribal behaviours. So find groups of people who are on similar habit-designing
paths as you. Focus on building great friendships and committing to tribes
which want you to grow. Nothing works like peerpressure. Use it well.
WANT OF SUBSTITUTION
Last year, as I was travelling in North India, we had
an encounter with wild monkeys. They came and snatched the eye-glasses of one
of our tribe-members. Suddenly there was panic, and we realised there was no
way we could take away the glasses from the monkey, unless we offered a substitute.
So the only way we could get back the glasses was to offer the monkey some
inviting food. The mind too cannot be deprived of anything, unless we offer a
substitution.
Kick the habit: Each
time we are trying to let go of some old habits, it is important to offer
ourselves better substitutional habits. For instance, if I want to get rid of
my habit of feeling jealous of people, I must get into the habit of offering
genuine appreciation to everyone around me. Or, if I want to rid myself of the
habit of complaining, I need to get into the habit of expressing gratitude.
JUSTIFICATIONS AND EXCUSES
Justifications are when I do not even think my habit
is actually wrong and completely justify it to myself. Excuses are when I know
that my current habits need to be renounced, but I always find some or the
other reason to not do so. Both are unhealthy to the core.
Kick the habit: Just
stop. That is all we need to do with justifications and excuses. Be careful how
you talk to yourself.
DISCOURAGING SELF-TALK
This is the highly detrimental practice of believing
that ‘I can’t’. Many people I meet have an innate rejection of themselves, even
if sometimes they appear to be people who are extremely confident and
motivated. Let us remember that we need to nurture ourselves in ways that
leading ourselves into newer habits and out of older habits can become a loving
and non-traumatic process.
Kick the habit: Practise
self-love. Be aggressively and limitlessly kind to yourself. It is the finest
way to learn new habits. Once you are kinder to yourself, habits become much
easier to be remoulded.
LACK OF CONSISTENCY
Consistency is essential and it can’t be stressed
enough. Even if it is a busy day, don’t skip a new habit for at least 21 days.
It is an important tool in forming new neural pathways, and creating better
habits.
Kick the habit: Choose
one new habit at a time. And work on it for 21 days, without a break. If you
end up skipping a day, go back to Day 1, until you have practised consistency
for 21 days. Your new habits will define a new you.
Nidhi Chaitanya is a subjective
scientist, poet and philosopher, who’ll be conducting a workshop on ‘Letting go
of old habits’, starting this weeken
MM3APR18
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