Habits – Friday Fundamentals

As part of last week’s Friday Fundamental, adapting to change, we discussed constant improvement with daily habits.This week we’ll expand on that piece a bit more in detail and look at how you can create new habits in your life starting today. There is no shortage of great content out there when it comes to habits. As mentioned last week, Charles Duhigg and James Clear have both written great books on the subjects. Researchers such as BJ Fogg of Stanford’s Behavior Design Lab and others have studied human behavior and psychology. Jim Kwik has studied and dissected the mind in an effort to unlock our true potential. Nothing I say will compare to the work each of these people have done, but I’ll do my best to relay some of the interesting things they’ve taught millions of people, including me, and share with you how you too can engineer the lifestyle you want starting with habits.Jim Kwik, in his book, Limitless, talks about the importance of what he calls S3 – simple small steps. By taking a bigger goal and breaking it into smaller manageable action steps, we’re able to progress towards that goal without letting the fear of such a daunting task prevent us from ever getting started. These simple small steps, over time, become habits. Habits compounded over time can create extraordinary results.To show the power of habits, Jim references a famous study called the Zeigarnik Effect. Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeiganarik studied a phenomenon noticed by her professor of wait staff at a local restaurant. Her professor noticed that wait staff at the busy restaurant were able to keep track of customers’ orders even while managing the many other tasks he or she is responsible for. Interruptions, other customers, and the chaos of the restaurant didn’t seem to create any confusion. However, after the order was placed and completed, the wait staff no longer remembered the details of the order. This seems counterintuitive. How can one remember specific details amidst interruptions, yet forget those details afterward? Zeiganarik and her professor set out to study this strange occurrence. What they found was that a task that has been started, but not finished, creates a tension in the mind, which improves the cognitive recollection of that event. If you think about this in your own life, you’ll likely recognize the feeling.Think to a time when you’ve procrastinated something – maybe a school assignment, a work deadline, etc. You tell yourself you’ll do it later, it will only take a short period of time, seemingly countless other reasons your mind can conjure up that will allow you to postpone said action. The result though, as you may be familiar with, is your mind is constantly reminding you of that thing you’re procrastinating. You’re unable to enjoy whatever it is you’re doing because your mind is in constant tension reminding you of that thing you’re putting off. It’s only when the action we’ve procrastinated is completed that our mind let’s go of that tension (and then on to the next thing). Psychologists believe this is why, in part, we feel guilty about procrastination. Given enough time to procrastinate that amount of tension can build and make us resent the task that much more, and cause you to not enjoy your current state.The solution? Well, don’t procrastinate would be the end all be all, but hey, we’re only human so let’s look at some more practical ways to deal with this dilemma we all face at times.In all likelihood, that thing we put off isn’t as big as we make it out to seem. The biggest hurdle is just taking that first step and getting started.Let’s take an example of reading. Whether it’s for school, work, personal study, or leisure. You have a book you should/have to read. But here you are on a beautiful weekend day, with so many other things you would rather be doing. As humans our tendency is to put off...