We all have bad habits. It’s incredibly difficult to only have good habits no matter how much we want them. Hopefully, though, there will be a time when the good habits are more motivating than the bad habits. Hopefully, one day we will find it easier to change a bad habit than maintain the disruption, disguise, and dictation of responses that a bad habit invokes.

Why Change Your Bad Habit?

We are aiming for the day when good habits are more motivating to maintain than the bad habits. To do this we need to understand why we would want to change a bad habit. What’s wrong with having a few bad habits? Should you change your bad habit?

A bad habit:

1. Disrupts

When you engage in a bad habit it takes you away from something. You are choosing one set of choices over something else. A habit of checking your phone every couple of minutes is disruptive. It keeps you focused on something that isn’t in the room with you. You end up missing moments with the people around you. A habit of staying up too late is disruptive. It throws off your sleep pattern and lowers your energy.

Can you think of a common bad habit and why it would be disruptive?

2. Disguises

Bad habits are probably easier to engage in than a good habit sometimes. Why? It might help us disguise the deeper issues we need to face. Maybe that bad habit was picked up to avoid dealing with something else. It could be an intentional or unintentional decision, but if we look closely at our behavior and get in touch with our emotions and do some reflection. We can start to understand what might be motivating our bad habits.

What do you think are some of the common emotions or situations that people disguise with a bad habit?

3. Dictates

When we engage in a bad habit for an extended amount of time we are training our brains to respond in that way. A bad habit dictates how we handle situations. We automatically pick up the phone as soon as we wake up. Before we even wake up, we’re on social media. We didn’t even think about it. It just happened. You could argue that a good habit also dictates how we handle situations, but the difference is that a bad habit is often not helping us accomplish our goals and a good habit can help us move forward.

How do you know if one of your habits is a good habit or a bad habit?

Summary of Reasons to Change Your Bad Habit

In Conclusion, if we let our bad habits reign we have developed a negative coping response. By that I mean, we’re ignoring our underlying needs and we’re giving into what might be easier solutions to the pain or sadness, anxiety, or whatever emotion or situation it is that we don’t want to deal with. A bad habit might hide the problem, but it doesn’t really give us the inspiration to move on or move forward.

How do we know if we are faced with a bad habit?

Ask yourself these three things 1) Is it disruptive? 2) Does it disguise a deep issue? 3) Is it dictating in a way that helps me move forward and accomplish big things or is it holding me back?

Behavior Challenge:  Reflect on one or two of your habits and consider it in light of the 3 D’s mentioned above. Is it a good habit or a bad habit?

Success often requires behavior change, but that isn’t always easy. Changing the way we think can impact how we behave. However, we might continue our behaviors even when we start thinking differently, because it’s become a habit. To get to our destination, better habits, we need to understand how habits are formed.

Give yourself time and find your why

In my journey of setting goals and focusing on the changes I need to make in my thinking, I’ve learned that good habits will help achieve goals and bad habits will derail a goal. If we want to succeed where we haven’t yet succeeded we probably need to make some changes to our behaviors.

In one of my earlier articles, I wrote about why behavior change is important for personal growth. In that article I highlighted 2 aspects of behavior change:  1) All the change shouldn’t happen at once and 2) give yourself time to understand the why.

As we take a look at how habits are formed, let’s keep the above aspects of behavior change in mind.

Building better habits starts small. I didn’t suddenly load half of my plate with vegetables. First, I started reading a book that explained food in a way that I understood. Then, I started adding a few more fruits and vegetables to my plate. The change took time and it was easier when I understood why it was so important and started small.

Yet, sometimes the habits we need to break are intimidating. Perhaps we haven’t yet figured out what is driving the bad habit. How can we change it? 

If we can learn how to change the habits that hold us back, we can begin to move forward.

For this article I share resources on how habits are formed. The resources include a couple posts from leadership mentor Michael Hyatt and a short video by the author of The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg.

Let’s dive in.

Bad habits have a trigger

How does a bad habit become a bad habit?

It needs a trigger.

A trigger is what kicks off the behavior so to speak. When we encounter the trigger we do the habit.

Ex: When I see Carla, I look down and walk past her. The trigger is seeing Carla. The bad habit is looking down as I walk past Carla. Why I look down is the reward that I get from looking down when I see Carla. We’ll get to that in a minute. The reward is the third section of what is called the habit loop.

The habit loop explained

There is a book on my reading list called The Power of Habit. While I haven’t read it yet, I have heard about the 3 sections of what is called a habit loop. The habit loop starts with a cue, is followed by a routine, and ends with a reward. The habits we have are based on cues from something in our environment. The cue causes the routine of practicing the habit when we encounter the cue. The reward we get from our engaging in the habit is what keeps us in the habit loop.

There is a great video that explains the habit loop and process of habit formation. It’s easy to follow and it goes into how you can figure out what your reward is for a behavior that has become a habit. It’s a short video from the author of The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg. Watch How to break habits (from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg).

Michael Hyatt has also shared a written version of the process of breaking bad habits if you’d prefer to read it (or check out both for more emphasis). Actually, there is a pretty funny video that is linked to Michael Hyatt’s article if you need some comic relief on the subject of behavior change.

Review of the habit loop

To review, a habit is formed by the repeated routine of engaging in a particular behavior. The behavior starts by a cue. Something in our environment, such as the time of day, location, actions, and emotions, triggers a behavior. We do the behavior when we are cued. It becomes a habit. We keep it up because we are being rewarded in some way for our behavior. Maybe it’s socialization, maybe it’s a need to move around the office, or perhaps we get a certain feeling from the behavior-if I don’t talk in the meeting I can’t get my ideas shot down.  If I look down when I walk by Carla, she doesn’t stop me in the hallway to talk.

Looking down isn’t bad in and of itself. However, Carla now thinks I’m mad at her or uninterested in her company.

Why am I looking down? Let’s see if we can figure out the reward.

Why am I engaging in this particular habit?

Just like in the How to break habits (from The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg) video, the way to figure out why you are engaging in the habit is to find the reward.

I look down when I see Carla in the hall. There must be a need that looking down fills. That would be the reward that I get from looking down. Consider it from various angles.

Perhaps my schedule and Carla’s schedule only ever intersect right after I’ve had a tough department meeting.

What might I need following a tough meeting? Theory 1) Quiet time and space to process the meeting. If it’s this theory, perhaps I could stay in the meeting room for 5 minutes after everyone leaves and take time to review notes that I took or write down ideas. Theory 2) The meeting reminded me how much I need to do and I need boundaries on how long I will talk in the hallway before excusing myself. If it’s this theory I can allow myself to talk to Carla for a couple minutes and then politely excuse myself.

To break the habit figure out what reinforces the behavior

Writing it out like this is a great exercise in figuring out the different steps in the habit loop and what possible rewards would be.

From a behavior analytic view, we are going to continue to do a behavior as long as that behavior is reinforced. The key to breaking the habit is to figure out what is reinforcing that behavior. Is it really avoiding a person like it might seem on the outside, or is a deeper need, like the need for reflection time or a need to respect your time? To change the behavior is to create a better habit.

Resources on how to form a good habit

I’ve compiled some resources for those that are interested in reading more on building better habits.

The Easiest Way to Overcome Bad Habits by Michael Hyatt – The easiest way might not focus on quitting the bad habit, but on what you can do to build a good habit.

How to Form a New Habit (in 8 Easy Steps) from developgoodhabits.com – Steps 3, 5, and 7 are especially important. Step 3 – Tie your new habit to an already established habit. Step 5 – Create a plan for when you hit a road block. Step 7 – This step is titled Reward Important Milestones, but it’s really about celebration. If we call it celebration it separates it from the section of the habit loop that is called Reward. Celebrating progress even when it’s small is important for forming good habits.

How to form a New Habit (in 5 Easy Steps) published on Inc. – Step 3 is very important. They call it resisting temptation. Make it easier to do the new habit rather than the old habit.

Summary of how habits are formed

In Conclusion, habit formation is summed up by the habit loop. Habits are triggered by something-that’s the cue. Habits become habits when we repeat the behavior. It becomes a routine. Finally, there is a reward that is received from the continuing of the habit.

To change the habit, get to the reward. Find out what you are getting out of your behavior.

To makes changes you might be more successful building a new healthy habit rather than tacking the bad habit directly. Pair your starting of a new habit with a habit that you already have and are strong in.

Create a plan for how you will go about changing your behavior, but also for what you will do when you encounter something difficult that would normally result in going back to the bad habit. In that plan, create ways to make the new habit easier than the one you are trying to replace. Lastly, remember to celebrate the steps you make to build better habits.

Have you read The Power of Habit? Are there key points from the book that you found helpful in understanding habit formation? Do you recommend any other books on habit formation?

Behavior Challenge:  Practice looking at a bad habit through the lens of trying to find what reward that behavior might be providing. You can choose one of your own habits or start by imagining a bad habit and its possible rewards.

No one wants vulnerability but we all want clarity. Can we gain clarity without being vulnerable? Clarity, vulnerability, and daring greatly all go together, as seen in the work of Brené Brown in her book, Daring Greatly.

The Connection between Vulnerability and Clarity

While the research discussed in Daring Greatly is compiled from interviews on shame and vulnerability, you don’t have to read very far into the book before Brown makes a connection between vulnerability and clarity.

“Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose.”

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, page 2

From that one sentence we can learn a lot about clarity. Let’s first look at “the clarity of our purpose.” This means a clearness of what we are meant to accomplish and live in this life. Isn’t that what we all mean when we say we need clarity?

I know what it’s like to feel a lack of purpose due to a lack of clarity. You can read more about that here.

Brown states that the clearness of our purpose is affected by our willingness to “engage with our vulnerability.”

Uh-oh. This means that if we lack clarity perhaps we are avoiding vulnerability.

Vulnerability and Being Who We Are

If we are struggling to find clarity in a situation, perhaps it is a cue to spend some time targeting those areas where we are most afraid to be vulnerable. 

For example, if we are struggling to stand out in crowd and be ourselves, or to engage with people on a real level, we need to consider how our lack of vulnerability might be affecting us.

“When we pretend that we can avoid vulnerability we engage in behaviors that are often inconsistent with who we want to be.”

Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, page 45

Ouch. That one hurt.

Yet, think about it. If our energy is spent worrying about avoiding all that will bring shame and vulnerability, we have blocked ourselves. How have we blocked ourselves? We have blocked the energy that could bring us great inspiration or confidence in who we are.

If we are so weighed down with the weight of hiding from others, we are also blocking ourselves from expressing who we are.

I’m in This with You

It’s still soon after reading this book and I admit that I have a lot of processing, reflecting, and change ahead of me.

It took me 3 different tries to read the book past the chapter on shame. The chapter on shame is an eye opening chapter. It was challenging. It was hard. I needed to read it. Unpacking all that I learned in that single chapter, much less the whole book, will take time. Therefore, I don’t have a personal growth story to share like I typically do.

Although, there is one story that might illustrate that I’m in this with you.

I wrote and preached sermons in graduate school. In my experience of sermon writing I learned an important lesson: finding a great message to preach often meant finding and sharing a message that I truly needed to work on myself, as much as I felt called to preach it to others. This article feels the same way.

I too struggle with having the courage to dare to gain clarity through vulnerability. Reading Daring Greatly was my first step.

If you hope to gain the courage to be you, read Daring Greatly by Brené Brown. It’s worth it.

Behavior Challenge: Pick one area where you most fear vulnerability and try to act even when feeling vulnerable.

Maybe it’s leaving a comment…

There are how to articles on building confidence that list things to do to build up your confidence. That’s the scientific way. How does faith help us build our confidence? Can we build our confidence in a scientific manner while also considering the place of faith in building confidence? Let’s consider how to grow confidence through science and faith.

Lessons on Growing Confidence

In last week’s article I shared where I am in building my confidence through two very important insights. If you missed last week’s article you can read it now: Is There a Secret to Confidence? | Growing Confidence

In this week’s article I want to highlight a few practices from science and faith that can assist in building confidence.  In my experience, the faith practices that assist in developing confidence are those that help me persevere. The scientific practices I am just beginning to learn. I want to share what I am learning

Confidence: The Science

Let’s start with the science. You can get that list of ways to boost confidence if you just want some quick tips. Y’all know me though. I want the podcast that goes into detail on how to act on those scientific tips. I listened to a podcast the other day that interviewed a high performance psychologist Dr. Michael Gervais. The topic was performing under pressure and performing with confidence.

Dr. Michael Gervais works with top performing athletes, musicians, Olympians, and others that are faced with maintaining their confidence under pressure. This brings an interesting focus to building confidence. Dr. Gervais speaks of training our confidence, in a similar manner to how we train for a sport or activity that we love.

Train Your Mind

The emphasis is on training your confidence in low pressure, calm environments. You then work your way up to what Dr. Gervais calls progressively more aggressive environments. You might think that the process to actually doing this would be complicated. It’s not. It’s actually something I’ve been sharing with readers on this blog from the beginning. You need to rid yourself of your negative thoughts…they are holding you back .

According to Dr. Gervais, it’s not preparation or past success that affects your confidence. It’s those things that you tell yourself. If you don’t train and practice your confidence in the calm places, you might freeze under pressure when it really matters.

Take Steps

For several weeks now I have been considering how much I hold back when there are important things to say. I started to wonder if I could help myself by starting to say more of what I think even when it’s a small comment. I realized that I wasn’t practicing speaking out with the little things, so of course I lacked the confidence to speak out when it really mattered.

That’s what Dr. Gervais is talking about. For us to gain our confidence and keep it when things are more intense, we need to be working at it all the time. He suggests writing out the bad thoughts and replacing them with good thoughts. Those negative and limiting thoughts are important to address and replace. However, this article is looking at confidence through science and faith. What about faith practices?

Confidence: The Faith

How do faith practices fit into this athletic training image of how to work hard at building our confidence?

At first glance you might not see it. Let’s look back at my article that I wrote last week: Is There a Secret to Confidence? I share how taking action and perseverance are ways that help me grow more confident. This relates to the struggle of the athlete on the field and not shrinking back when the spotlight is on you or you find yourself in a difficult situation. In those places you have to take action and you have to persevere. Faith is the same way.

You start small and take small steps to practice your faith. But you have to build it up. If you stay at that first step, that starting level, you will not deepen your faith. If you give up when it gets difficult you will not deepen your faith.

Confidence in life comes from training our minds as well as training our hearts.

Train Your Heart

When I am working to train my heart I do it through prayer and building a community.

Prayer and building a community around you of those that share your faith are important for confidence building. I know that this is a different angle than you hear at church, but don’t worry. I understand that in terms of growing your faith prayer brings us closer to God and a community helps us grow closer to God also.

Yet look at it from the angle of how prayer and community building affects your inner being, which therefore affects your confidence.

Open your heart

If I am closed off to prayer or to the community around me, I might be so caught up in myself that I miss the message that I am to give to the world. If I open my heart, however, I can see the needs around me. I can see how my gifts can serve the world and I can act confidently.

Confidence through Science and Faith

From looking both at science and faith we can see that they work together to build confidence by building and training both the mind and the heart.

Where is your current focus, mind or heart, in terms of how you are working to increase your confidence?

Behavior Challenge: Take some time this week to decide how you can better train your heart and mind to improve your confidence.

This is just the beginning of my posts on science and faith. I’m excited to share that I will post about science and faith once a month. If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to my email list.

Listen to the Podcast: Your Ultimate Guide to Performing Under Pressure and Unleashing Confidence – Dr. Michael Gervais is BACK – Science of Success Podcast.