Thank You for Listening!
Thank You for Listening!
Today's mindfulness minute is going to be about habits. I just finished reading a Charles Duhigg book called the power of habit. Not everybody's a reader. In fact, I wouldn't call myself a reader. I try to be. So books aren't for everybody, but goodness, there's audio books everywhere now. There's a lot of different ways to get your, your media and your learnings today is going to be really quick on habits. Habits, in the Duhigg book are cool, I think because they talk a lot about the context around habits and a lot about the research around habits. And it's not a whole lot about Charles Duhigg's opinion about them. It's about what he learned through reading the research related to habits and what they do for us, what they do to work against us. And they cover everything from addiction. You know, real traditional AA and where that was founded and how it works and why it works all the way through, just making better business habits as a business, as an organization. It's a really, really neat book. And I want to give it a little shout out today. It's been fun since I started reading and finished reading the power of habits, book to explore what I'm doing. The cool thing. And the terrible thing about habits is a lot of times you don't know that you're doing them because habits are unconscious. And a lot of, I guess, subconscious, maybe a bit better of a way to say it, their subconscious and that there is according to the book and it makes sense to me, a cue. So something that prompts you, something that happens a trigger, you might call it, and then there is a behavior associated with it. So the cue, the trigger, and then the thing you do in reaction to the. And then a reward of some type on the other side. And that is the most simple version of what a habit is and how a habit is formed. It goes much deeper than that. It looks at a variety of tweaked versions of that circle. But at its foundation, think of it as cue behavior reward. The interesting part for me or the cool part for me and reflecting is that I don't typically notice the cue while it's cuing me. I have noticed myself thinking about the cue and the behavior mid behavior or near the reward. So not necessarily between steps one or two, but more so on the backside of two and into three. What am I doing? Do I like what I'm doing? Does it fit my goals? And if it doesn't fit my goals; or if it does for that matter. It's just exploring what that cue was. So I can either repeat it or modify it in hopes of a better two and three. A better behavior, a behavior that aligns with my goals better and a reward that may be a similar or the same, because getting into the book. If you want to make a better habit, you can't really take one away. Your better bet is to replace numbers two. Use a similar cue, use a similar reward and replace the behavior. Maybe tweak the cue. Or know what the cue is if you need to avoid it and replace it with something else. So you can change and still end up at a similar or the same reward, because that's what your body is going to feed off of. That's what your mind is going to feed off of is whatever that reward is. It's really, really fascinating stuff. It's helped me. Not necessarily to make 180 degree change in my life because I'm not; I don't think many people are those kinds of people. And I'm definitely not where I read something and I just fix it like overnight. It's not how, I don't think it works for most of us. But just objectively or trying to objectively consider what habit I have, what is causing the habit and does it align with my goals? So that if it's a really strong cue. If I see it happening every day, for instance, then that's a cue that I really, really need to examine. And if it's derailing me every morning, like some of them I noticed were. The same cue every morning, between 6:00 AM and 1 PM. Like doesn't matter where the cue starts or when it happens, whenever that cue is set and then the behavior happens and then the reward happens, it sets off a pattern of other habits that are not helpful to my goals. That was really interesting to think about. It was really fascinating and recommend if you are anywhere on the spectrum of wanting help with habits or curious about why you do what you do. Check out that book by Charles, Duhigg called"The power of habit." It's a pretty easy read. I read it over like a month or a month and a half because that's what I do. I'm not a fast reader. I usually fall asleep pretty fast. If I can get through it, I bet you can too. And if not, then check it out on audio book or I'm guessing I haven't honestly looked for this. There's probably a Ted talk or a YouTube video with Duhigg where he talks about it. And I will look for those and link them in the show notes for here as well. But anyhow, hope you're having a great day. I hope this helps a little bit. And if you know, somebody that might benefit from it, feel free, or please share this with them because improvement is awesome, especially when it comes with low pressure. Thanks a bunch.