Make the Invisible Visible
What if I told you that many of the things you do each day are not by your conscious choice? Things like how often you exercise, what you eat, and how you talk to your kids, aren’t actually decisions. If you’re like me, you are eager to hear the behavior science research that uncovers how to make these choices in our behavior visible once again.
A study at Duke University showed that more than 40% of the actions that people perform on a day-to-day basis weren’t actually decisions, but habits. In one of my recent and more popular articles, I explained that a habit is an automatic behavior that occurs in response to a contextual cue. Habits are truly the bedrock of everyday life as they produce unthinking routines that have an exponential effect on our life outcomes.
How to Change a Habit of Inactivity
If you are habitually sedentary and you’d like to live a healthy life-style, I have good news for you. You have already taken the biggest step in becoming a regular exerciser, which is growing your desire to change. Specifically, the fact that you want to exercise shows that you already have fuel in your motivation tank. Let’s use that fuel to identify the following three components in the habit loop in order to replace your habit of inactivity with exercise.
Awareness Training
Most people’s habits have continued for so long that they don’t notice what triggers them anymore. Let’s examine Jenny, who uses her 30-minute lunch break to catch up on social media, then watches two hours of Netflix after work. Jenny WANTS to live an active lifestyle, but is having trouble making exercise a part of her daily routine.
In order for her to change, Jenny must identify, how she feels right before she turns to her screens (i.e. phone/TV).
Jenny reflects that, “I usually pick up my phone on my break at work when I’m feeling bored, tired, or stressed. At home, I watch a couple hours of TV to take my mind off the stress in my life and because I feel exhausted from the day.”
Break it Down
Jenny’s habit of sedentary screen time unfolds as follows:
Cue –> Feelings of boredom, stress, fatigue
Routine –> Check social media on phone; watch TV
Reward –> Distraction from stress and an interruption from boredom
If you want to change a habit, the first step is to become aware of the cue that triggers the behavior. Charles Duhigg, in his book The Power of Habit, recommends carrying around a note card and making a check mark on the card each time you feel the cue—boredom, stress, fatigue.
After gaining awareness of the cue that triggers the behavior you want to change, you can then begin to replace the unwanted behavior with the desired behavior. To the surprise of many, exercise provides the same rewards (and more!) as screen time—decreases in stress, interruption from boredom, increased energy, and more.
So, the new habit loop will unfold as follows:
Cue –> Feelings of boredom, stress, fatigue
Routine –> Go on a 15-minute walk
Reward –> Distraction from stress; interruption from boredom; increased energy and positive mood
As David Foster Wallace told a group of graduates in a commencement speech, “two young fish were swimming along and happened to meet an older fish who nodded and said, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ The two fish swam on for a bit. Then, one looked over at the other and goes, ‘What the heck is water?’”
The water is our habits—the unthinking behaviors and invisible actions that surround us every day. By looking at our cues, behaviors, and rewards, they become visible once again.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
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Reference:
Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit. The Random House Publishing Co.
Neal, D. T., Wood, W., & Quinn, J. M. (2006). Habits—A Repeat Performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 198-202.
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