Me and a guy named Joe

Throughout lockdown, I tried to maintain some level of fitness by joining a work colleague over Microsoft Teams every lunchtime and working out to a Joe Wicks video or to some random American women who seemed to have endless energy whilst I gasped and stumbled through the next 40 seconds of jumping jacks.

However, we kept our lunchtime routine in there, as tough as it was sometimes, but did I work out with Joe when my colleague couldn’t make it? Well not all the time. So, this got me thinking about all the theories I’d come to believe about if you repeat an action so many times it becomes habit and I wanted to understand more about how habits are formed, maintained and broken.

In Charles Duhigg’s book ‘The Power of Habits’ he puts it down to three main elements

1. An environmental cue
2. A behavioural response
3. A reward

With a habit, there’s some cue that triggers a behaviour. For example, my in-laws going shopping every Thursday each week, never any other day, just Thursdays. Time is the trigger; shopping is the behaviour so that’s a habit.

Habits are reinforced by rewards. In my case, it was the thought of looking in the mirror and seeing the type of abs you could bounce a walnut off. However sometimes the reward is not so easy to spot. If you’re in the habit of checking your phone every time you’re bored, the reward is a bit more subtle and there’s a good chance it’s relief from the anxiety of your own thoughts whether it be at work or at home. This is true whether we’re aware of it or not. Hence, bad habits can often easily form if we’re not careful.

So how do we create new habits? Well contra to belief it isn’t about repeated actions. How many times have you heard – “Get a flat stomach in 30 days” or “Lose 2 stones in a month”? as we all know it just doesn’t work like that.

To form new habits, you need to focus on the cue by dedicating your energy to consciously creating and/or reorganising the cues in your environment that trigger those habits. Instead of just focusing on developing the habit of let’s say checking your emails every 10 minutes, turn off the alert and remove the distraction. Make a specific time to check your emails and afterwards make a cuppa or give yourself a reward or a short break away from your PC or workstation.

Next, think about how you perceive the habit you want to build. If the habit seems impossible, then it will feel harder. If it seems easier, then it will be easier. That may seem a bit basic, but it has serious consequences. Start small and build on it, and don’t expect to become the expert of time management overnight, it takes time and patience.

And remember to have a plan if something goes wrong and it will. Consider what could go wrong and plan for this. Then when it does, it won’t impact on your new habit as much as it could.

For me, I made sure the reward was there, after all if you can’t eat cake after working out, what’s the point in that?

If you want to start a new habit either to develop professionally or personally, why not look at attending some of our fantastic one-day courses.  You can find out more on our events page.

• Customer Service (Building Relationships & Influencing others) – 13th October2022
• Attention Management – 25th Oct 2022
• Art of Delegation – 3rd November 2022
• Building confidence and assertiveness – 10th November 2022
• Coaching Skills – 16th November 2022

Get in touch to find out more or to book on by contacting us at  info@1245881.eu11.myftpupload.com or telephone 01904 628838