Changing habits for a successful work life
For Aristotle, each individual is the sum of his or her actions repeated daily. Thus, to paraphrase one of the founding fathers of Western philosophy, "excellence is above all a matter of habit". Several recent books popularize the role of habits in our lives and the levers to control them. We summarize them here.
In this article, discover :
- The impact of your habits on your success
- The method to get rid of the harmful ones
- How to create a routine that will help you achieve your goals
The power of habit
40% of your daily actions are unconscious and result from your habits(source). These habits are formed for a good reason: to save energy. Indeed, in "automatic" mode, the brain spends less calories to perform an action. Your attention is then focused on more important tasks (see our article on attention residue). The impact of habits on our success is immense because of their repeated nature.
Zola carved "Nulla dies sine linea" (not a day without a line), a Latin phrase attributed to Pliny the Elder, on his mantelpiece to motivate him to maintain his daily writing habit. All top sportsmen and women affirm it: their routines are at the heart of their success. Conversely, it is not the occasional cigarette or soda that will cause health problems but their regular consumption.
Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine says that as a teenager he took off musically after putting himself through an hour-long rehearsal routine every day.
Furthermore, some habits have a domino effect and trigger a myriad of other positive impacts on our lives. This is what Charles Duhigg, author of "The Power of Habit", calls "keystone habits". (keystone routines).
The best-known example is physical exercise. Beyond the direct effect of improving sports performance, exercise improves sleep, mood, stress resistance and will facilitate discipline in other areas. Conversely, staying up late has a multitude of indirect negative consequences. Beyond the feeling of fatigue, appetite for junk food increases (source), as well as irritability and the propensity to procrastinate.
As you will have understood, your habits are central to your success, your happiness and your health. But how can you change the ones you consider harmful?
Ending bad habits is very difficult. They are surprisingly resilient because they are maintained in a deep area of the brain that is not very responsive to change: the basal ganglia.
I experienced this personally when I tried for years to stop staying up late. As an entrepreneur, it was THE bad habit that was most impeding my success. My frequent short nights prevented me from working effectively. I would then stress about the tasks that were piling up... only to sleep poorly again! Despite my many attempts, it was impossible for me to stay under the midnight mark for any length of time.
Starcraft 2, the real-time strategy game that shortened my nights. Imagine a chess game, but with 200 milliseconds to think about each move.
Understanding how habits work has allowed me to finally change them. A habit follows a neurological loop in 3 steps:
- The signal. This is the trigger, the stimulus perceived by your brain that will trigger an action. This signal generally comes from your environment (place, time, other people's behavior, emotional state etc.)
- The routine. The action taken in response to the stimulus. It can be emotional, physical or mental.
- The reward. It comes after the routine and reinforces the link between the signal and the associated action. In the future, the brain will generate dopamine upon receiving the signal, in anticipation of the reward to come. This is the source of the anchoring of habits.
To make the neurological loop more concrete, let's take the typical example of smoking. The signal is, for example, the end of a meal, which marks the desire to smoke. The routine is to smoke a cigarette. The reward is the pleasure of nicotine.
According to Charles Duhigg, the most effective way to change a habit is not to eliminate it but to substitute it with another behavior. The method then is:
- Identify the signal, the trigger of the habit you want to change.
- To substitute the routine, the triggered action, with another that generates a similar reward.
In my case, the signal (1) was the end of dinner which marked a moment of low energy and slackness after a day of work.
The routine (2) was the fact of putting myself in front of my screen to watch series or play video games with the consequence of losing track of time.
The reward (3) I got was the pleasure of these playful activities that I loved. The winning method for me was to play the guitar immediately after the meal.
It's an activity I enjoy (with a reward) that doesn't have the excitement or addictive nature of a TV show or video game. It's been helping me get to sleep before midnight when I'm not socially active for two years now. Besides, I have never progressed so much with my instrument (you understand better the example of Tom Morello now!).
Note: Charles Duhigg points out that relapses often occur at times of stress or fatigue, particularly in the case of addictions. In this case, two elements come into play to prevent this relapse. Firstly, the support of a peer group in the same situation (e.g. Alcoholics Anonymous). Secondly, the belief in one's ability to change, the optimism for the future.
Build the winning routine
It's time for you to do some quick introspection:
What actions do you mechanically repeat every day (especially when you get up and go to bed)? Do they serve your life goals?
Make a list of the routines you want to change or add and an action plan to get you there. All the elements are now in your hands!
Each one has different objectives, but three keystone habits are universal and are unanimously accepted by the scientific community:
- Exercise every day
- Sleep well
- Meditate
Physical exercise is a "keystone habit" that the scientific community agrees on.
Your habits have infinitely more impact than your sporadic actions. This is true in all areas, including management! At LumApps, we have developed a management tool that allows you to inscribe routines in your daily life (1-to-1 meetings, team objectives...).
Discover LumApps Journeys, our management and onboarding solution!
References
- The work of the English psychologist Wendy Wood (link)
- https://www.santelog.com/actualites/obesite-le-manque-de-sommeil-predispose-notre-cerveau-la-malbouffe
- https://www.santelog.com/actualites/sommeil-comment-les-nuits-blanches-peuvent-mener-lobesite
- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do, and How to Change - Charles Duhigg
