How Mastering Your Habits can Transform Your Life
Are you obsessed with habits like the rest of us? Fascinated by the latest books on building good habits and breaking bad ones? Well, you're not alone - it seems like everyone is jumping on the habit train these days. But the truth is, habits aren't just a passing trend. They're the key to unlocking a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life at any age.
As women, we juggle so many roles and responsibilities–career, family, relationships, and self-care—that it's easy to feel overwhelmed and out of control at times. But by mastering our habits, we can regain that sense of balance and intentionality in our lives. Good habits provide structure, free up mental energy, and enable us to show up as our best selves day after day.
I get it; change is hard. We all have that inner critic whispering doubts and excuses. You may have tried and failed to start a new habit before. I've been there too - waking up at crazy hours, letting stress derail my healthy routines. But I've also discovered how empowering it is to take charge of my habits instead of letting them control me.
One key is understanding that habits aren't one-size-fits-all. At different times in life, we want and need different things. For example, trends in dating habits today show how generations approach their habits differently. Older adults are developing habits around creating a life together with separate living spaces. That sounds amazing to me! I like to hog the bed, snore, and wake up at crazy early hours to exercise. The idea of doing all the other parts of a relationship with someone while preserving my living space is attractive, especially if it’s less expensive than a massive house with East and West wings. Younger adults, though, are seeking “financial flames.” It's becoming normal to split checks, send money as gifts, and integrate more financially early in a relationship. That sounds awful to me! If someone asks me for money, my immediate reaction is that it must be a scam. The different approaches to dating are a tremendous example of how values, beliefs, and experiences shape your compass and guide your life habits and reactions. Your habits give you the freedom to choose your adventure in life based on your values and priorities.
So, what exactly is a habit? There's an ongoing debate, but let's keep it simple. Let’s define a habit as a process you do consistently and repeatedly. We’ll say a process is a bunch of actions you do in a particular order (if you remember high school English, all the verbs you learned are handy here). To make it consistent and repeatable, you typically do these actions in this order every time you remember to do it. We’re not looking for perfection, just “more often than not.” The more consistent you are, the more ingrained or automatic that process becomes.
How do we create those processes? First, something causes us to take action (my English teacher would be proud of me twice now for introducing a second learning from class, cause and effect). The reason can be something outside ourselves, like a location, calendar reminder, or something someone said. Or, it can be something within ourselves, like a memory, emotion, or value. Next, we act with whatever we think are the actions to take for that event or situation. To complete the cycle, we receive feedback. The feedback can be rewarding or punishing, and it can be within ourselves, like a runner’s high, or outside ourselves, like a performance review. If it’s rewarding, we save that process for next time. If it’s punishing, we may modify our process, avoid that situation next time, or enter into other negative spirals depending on how we interpret what happened. Again, these are all the cool features of being human.
I’m not going to lie; I’m a neuroscience fan. I don’t always understand the words they use, but I love hearing how scientists are learning about how the brain works. Everything I just described about forming habits is what some neuroscientists work on all day. They discover the neural pathways that light up when we feel pain or pleasure while mapping what part of the brain is responsible for our actions. I’d also like to point out that we typically don’t let them cut open actual human beings, so the tools and techniques they use to make these discoveries are impressive.
So, what can neuroscience tell us about habit formation? There are structures in the center of your brain called basal ganglia (pronounced “bay-sal” “gang-lee-uh”) that coordinate the actions of different areas of your brain. One role it plays is evaluating whether something is rewarding. If it feels good, do it. If it sucks, don’t do it. This is my kind of simple logic. If we kept doing this, we’d max out our credit cards on food, alcohol, online shopping, and in-app purchases. That doesn’t sound great long-term, so I’ll vote for everything in moderation. It’s a good thing we have more areas of our brain to moderate the basal ganglia! For habit formation, the basal ganglia help us find an incentive to create a habit regardless of whether we think it’s a “good” or “bad” habit.
A section within the basal ganglia is called the putamen (pronounced “pyoo-tay-men”). This handy area is our “learning machine,” which likes to take things we repeatedly practice and turn them into habits. Let’s say you are learning to ride a bike. At first, there are many things to remember about balancing, wearing helmets, pedaling, traffic laws, directions, and hand signals. As you practice, this becomes easier and takes less energy or thought. That’s what the putamen helps with when forming habits.
The prefrontal cortex is the other part of the brain that plays a starring role in habits. This area regulates our thoughts, actions, and emotions. It has the honor of telling other regions, like the basal ganglia, that perhaps we don’t need ten pizzas for dinner after a night at the bar. Of course, I’m simplifying all the functions each part of the brain does to keep us alive daily. You can undoubtedly dive deeper into these subjects if you’re curious!
Why does any of this matter? Mastering your habits is one of the most powerful ways to take control of your life. Good habits create an upward spiral of positive emotions, energy, and momentum. They reinforce your belief that you can achieve your goals. Bad habits do the opposite, leaving you stuck, burnt out, and depleted.
Switching between the two spirals and managing each spiral are skills you can learn and grow. For example, I wasn’t interested in physical education (PE) in elementary school. I didn’t know how to play sports, was picked last at recess, and didn’t even know if I liked any sports. My PE teacher declared today was high jump day, and tomorrow was pull-ups. I faked injuries. I didn’t know what an Achilles tendon was, but I knew I wouldn’t have to run that day in the running club if I convinced my PE teacher that it was injured. I hated the running club because I was slow compared to my friends. They would log three or four miles in the same time it took me to wander through one. Every memory I have of this period was full of dread.
Fast forward to adulthood. I worked in an office full of former military people. All the cool kids did adventure races. One year, they wanted to assemble a relay team for a Ragnar Relay. Each relay is roughly 200 miles, split into segments that 12 team members take on. A brilliant feature is that they purposefully make manageable segments for people new to running. To get 12 people who are crazy enough to run and able to train and travel for this event, a friend asked me to join. At first, I thought this was a terrible idea. He persisted with how I could take the manageable segments, I could start training a mile at a time, and we could run very slowly after work. (These are all great strategies for forming habits, by the way) I gave in and began training for my first relay. Fast forward to today, and I’ve completed seven Ragnar Relays and countless triathlons, and I’m addicted to lifting heavy weights. I found the exercise habits that worked for me and developed them over time. Even better, I do it because I enjoy it, not because my PE teacher told me to. I love my morning run for creative thinking and letting my mind wander. I’ve found physical and mental strength I didn’t know I had through weightlifting. Simple things like my breathing and posture improved as I got comfortable in my skin. My point is if something isn’t working for you, your brain gives you the ability to find something else. It may take trying a few things, and it may take longer than you impatiently want. It’s still possible.
The beautiful truth is you have the power to reshape your habits at any age or stage of life. It just takes curiosity, self-compassion, and the right strategies. If you're ready to start that transformation, I'm here to guide you every step of the way as a certified expert in behavioral design and positive psychology. If you’re not ready, take your time. Stay curious about habits, and consider reading the articles below for inspiration. I wish you a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life.
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