It’s a whole new year—and the perfect time to kick that bad habit.
By Andrea Bahe
January 1 is a good day to kick a habit. At least that’s the idea behind that too-familiar cultural cliché, the New Year’s resolution. Though self-improvement seems to always be in season, the gray days of midwinter are still marketed as the best time of year to get out of debt, go green, switch to decaf, or revamp your relationships. But true lifestyle change requires more commitment than a hasty holiday season promise. At their core most New Year’s resolutions are about developing or dismantling a habit. And even if you don’t have the best resolution track record, you can change your ways by skipping the quick fixes and learning to cultivate habits instead.
Habits Defined
The word habit comes with baggage—images of nail biting, procrastination, smoking, saying “like” too much—in short, bad habits. But despite its negative rep, a habit can be either bad or good. “Habits govern our lives,” says Frank Farley, PhD, psychologist and professor at Temple University. “They’re responses that are rewarded and get repeated.” In short, most habits are repeated behaviors that our brains have learned to do on autopilot—or at least with little prodding. Because of the mind’s ability to habituate, we don’t have to consciously and deliberately think about everything we do. It’s why we’re able to drive, talk, and listen to music simultaneously.
Usually, however, we think of habits as the things about ourselves we’d like to change. That brings us back to January 1. We’ve all been there. We decide to give up a vice or ingrain a discipline—swear off coffee, get up earlier, run every day. But then we lose momentum or just quit, and we chalk it up to lack of willpower. We think we should be able to do whatever we put our minds to, and if we can’t, it’s because we’re apathetic or slackers or, worse, failures. It turns out we just missed a biology lecture or two. Individual circumstances aside, there are biological reasons why it’s tough to change our ways. Research suggests that developing new habits is akin to rewiring our brains. Rewiring takes time, but there are ways to help the process along.
Check Your Focus.
For starters, keep your focus on the new behavior you’re trying to cultivate, not on the old behavior you’re trying to change. M. J. Ryan, life coach and author of This Year I Will . . . How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True, says that when it comes to habit change, “You’ll learn that the process is not about getting rid of bad habits—the pathway to your current behavior is there for life—but building new, more positive ones. Even stopping a bad habit, like smoking, is really about creating a new good habit, nonsmoking.” Let’s say that you’re trying to rein in your spending habits. How do you see it? Are you denying yourself a daily chai, or are you saving money for a weekend trip? As trivial as it sounds, how you frame your new behavior matters because it will affect your attitude in the days ahead. You’ll be more likely to see the behavior change as an opportunity instead of a deprivation.
Write It Down.
Whether it’s a sticky note on your bathroom mirror or a more formal contract, a written record can be a meaningful ritual and a tangible reminder of your commitment. Psychologists say that written contracts tend to be more powerful than verbal ones. “The trouble with a verbal written contracts because they’re a way for people to “signal intention” to themselves. Even better, have a friend be your witness and co-sign your contract. Don’t Go solo. Everyone needs a sounding board, a cheering section, or a role model. Based on your personality and past successes, determine what kind of help you’ll need from others. Do you need a friend to call you once a week, or are you better off when you’re part of a group of people with the same goal?
Does it make more sense for you to connect with someone who’s already achieved what you’re attempting? Even if it’s difficult to ask for help, make a point to tell at least one friend your plan for change. She can help remind you of your intention when things get tough.
Reward yourself.
Small rewards at regular intervals help the brain associate a specific action with a reward. There is a chemical in our brains called dopamine to thank for that. Dopamine works as a neurotransmitter, sending messages cell to cell. “Dopamine is involved in our feeling of reward, in what feels good,” says Monika Fleshner, PhD, associate professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. “In humans and animals, there’s a (neural) pathway to the region of the brain where dopamine is released. When we eat we activate that pathway. When we do drugs we activate that pathway. When we exercise we activate that pathway, too.” To oversimplify, dopamine is released in response to pleasure-producing experiences. And once we’ve had the experience and its accompanying dopamine rush, our desire for dopamine drives us to seek those experiences, which the brain now recognizes as rewards. That’s why creating your own rewards can help when you’re cultivating habits that don’t produce this natural dopamine rush. But this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to break out the credit card every time you make progress. “There are actually two types of rewards: psychological, such as support and verbal encouragement, and a material reward like a chocolate bar,” says Dr. Farley. “Support can be a form of reward.” But, he cautions, “Rewards work most effectively with simpler habits, not complex ones.”
Prepare for Lapses and Relapses.
Somewhere along the line, you’re going to blow it. You’ll be on time for work on Monday and Tuesday but late on Wednesday. So you’re late Thursday and Friday too. In psychology this is known as the abstinence violation effect: a person stops a particular behavior, then slips up once, and it leads to uncontrolled relapse. In This Year I Will …, Ryan describes a time when she was trying to give up soda. On a business trip, she ended up drinking a soda for an energy boost. Because she drank one, she went ahead and had six more during the rest of her trip. Rather than berate herself for the slip-up, Ryan says she had to acknowledge that she had still made progress. In 66 days she drank only six sodas (instead of her usual 66). If you prepare for lapses ahead of time, they’ll be less likely to derail your entire effort when they do happen.
Give It Time.
Any behavior that you’d like to make a habit requires repetition. After all, that’s what a habit is. And though it’s always difficult at first, it won’t be after a few weeks. Most behavior experts claim that it takes about three weeks for a behavior to become a habit. Based on her research in the physiology of exercise, Dr. Fleshner says that it requires about three weeks for exercise to have an impact on the brain and activate reward pathways. “From a habit perspective, I would suspect that it requires that same number of weeks to cause those kinds of changes in neural circuits,” she says. “And that’s what you’ve got to have to have an enduring behavior, right?” Whether or not three ends up being your magic number, you can still be assured that, one day soon, waking up at 6 a.m. (or any other habit) will come more naturally
Making S.M.A.R.T.Changes
The acronym has fuzzy origins, but everyone from project managers to fourth-graders has used S.M.A.R.T. when setting goals. If you want a better chance of success as you start a new habit, make sure your plan fits these criteria:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Learn More
- This Year I Will: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True by M. J. Ryan (Broadway Books, 2006)
- Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward by James O. Prochaska, John Norcross, and Carlo DiClemente (Collings Living, 1995)
- The Habit Change Workbook: How to Break Bad Habits and Form Good Ones by James Claiborn, PhD, and Cherry Pedrick, RN (New Harbinger, 2001)
- The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Breaking Bad Habits by Suzanne LeVert and Gary McClain, PhD (Alpha Books, 2000)
- The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-free Play by Neil Fiore, PhD (Tarcher, 2007)
