When it comes to changing behavior and achieving results you want part of getting yourself there is to just do the dang thing. But, sometimes that feels impossible. Perhaps it will help to better understand our brain and ways we can outsmart or rewire our brain to make the change more manageable for ourselves.
Understanding Our Protective Brains
Our brain’s number one priority is to keep us safe and alive. Which is quite an undertaking. To do this job, our brains prefer to take the easiest route to fulfilling this task. The easiest route is typically one that the brain is familiar with. This could be a learned evolutionary response or it could be a learned behavior like a habit. Either way, our brain takes past experiences (either our own or from eons of experiences from our ancestors and human kind) and will automatically take actions according to what the brain believes will bring it the result it expects.
Our brain fears the unknown because the brain has trouble not knowing a predictable outcome. Even if the predictable is a negative habit or outcome, it is still predictable to the brain and the brain equates predictability with safe.
This is why we can get stuck in negative loops. The brain will automatically default to what it believes will bring a predictable result (good or bad) because it feels safe to the brain.
Knowing this, when we’re trying to deviate from the known and predictable to doing something that is unknown and foreign to the brain ,like adopting a new behavior, we can try and calm our mind from freaking out. Simply trying to reassure your brain that it is safe taking these new steps and veering from its usual manual can begin to put your mind at ease and facilitate less resistance to taking new action.
The TL;DR Takeaway: your brain is trying to protect you and keep you safe by keeping you repeating habits and behaviors in which it can predict the outcome. Next time you’re trying to implement a behavior change, try pausing and literally reassure your mind that you are safe and it is safe to take a different action.
Desirable Behaviors Can Reinforce Less Probable Behaviors
Say what? This is the principle of premacking which essentially means that a desirable, likely behavior can reinforce an undesirable, less probable behavior.
It’s best to illustrate this concept with a few tactile examples we do all the time. I use this principle all the time in the summer as I’m more likely to read a book if I’m tanning beside a body of water. Me being poolside, oceanside, lakeside, etc. is a highly probable and desirable behavior for me and reading is the less probable behavior for me. However, when I pair the two together, I knock out a lot of reading.
Another example I like is I love a podcast, but when the pandemic ended my commute to work I didn’t have a good time to play a podcast anymore. So, instead of listening to music when I worked out I started listening to my favorite podcasts. The podcast is almost like a reward for exercising. I know people who use the same principle and either listen to a podcast or watch their favorite show while on a hot girl/guy walk.
The TL;DR Takeaway: When possible, pair something you’d rather not do with something you want to do. The reward of the things you like reinforces the less probable behavior of the thing you don’t like. If you want to be social instead of exercising, pair finding a workout class or a run club with people you enjoy. This tactic is also used when people want to become “a morning person” it’s suggested that you have something you’re looking forward to upon waking up that will get you out of bed like some uninterrupted silence and time to mediate or read and sip a cup of (organic) coffee.
Habit Stacking
Similar to the Premacking Principle, Habit Stacking is when you use a habit (behavior) you already have as a trigger and link a new habit you’re trying to implement to it. Essentially, you’re building a new habit on top of an existing habit.
For example, some people like to put their vitamins near their coffee maker because they know they’ll make a cup of coffee every morning so having the supplements easily accessible and visibly near the coffee maker will trigger you to take your vitamins every day when you’re making your coffee.
The TL;DR Takeaway: between habit stacking and premacking, try linking old habits or preferred habits with the new behaviors you’re trying to create into a habit. You’re more likely to have a habit stick if you ‘stack’ it on top of a habit you know you will already be doing.
Motivation “Hacks”
Understanding these principles of our beautiful brain can help us to make new learned behaviors stick by increasing our odds of habit change. Bringing awareness to knowing why we are or aren’t doing something can help us take steps to quit self-sabotaging ourselves by falling back into old, negative habits you’re trying to kick. Create a new neural pathway shortcut to your brain by combining tasks, either by premacking or stacking, Try these out when implementing your new habits you decided on to close out 2023 in our Halftime Check In!