Written by: Natalia Martinez, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
New year new goals, new habits… At least this is what I constantly see in my clients at the beginning of each year. The good news is that it is easy to set goals for yourself, the bad one is that only 12% of people will ever experience a taste of victory. Some of these goals involve breaking deeply ingrained habits, such as eating too much, drinking too much, not enough exercise, stay up late, working too much, etc… I see many of my clients, intelligent professionals, struggling to change some simple habits and getting totally frustrated with themselves. I became very curious about why we do what we do, and why it is so challenging to change some of our habits.
Let's look at the science behind it all: habits are regular tendencies or practices. They are often unconscious and automatic. Each of us has our share of such practices, some useful and others not so. Good habits make us efficient and productive as well as helping us to achieve our goals. On the other hand, bad habits make it more difficult for us to achieve our desired goals. They also interfere with our productivity.
In his book” The Power of Habits” Charles Duhigg explains the process of habit formation in our brain. “Firstly, there's a cue, or a trigger, that tells your brain to go into an automatic mode and let a behavior unfold. Secondly, there's the routine, which is the behavior itself (This is what comes to mind at once every time we think about habits). The third step is the reward. This is something that your brain likes and helps it remember the "habit loop" in the future”. By repeating certain habits over and over, a strong neuronal circuit is created. This is called the Hebbian Theory (named after Canadian neuropsychologist Donald Hebb), i.e. when you have repetitive thoughts or take actions repeatedly, your neurons fire, again and again, forming stronger and stronger neuronal circuits. Therefore, “the neurons which fire together wire together”.
Hence, we know that habits are the result of these strong neuronal circuits been formed over time. How easy is it to break them? This is a fundamental question, one that is constantly being faced by my clients in their willingness to quit bad habits.
Ivan Pavlov conducted fascinating research with rats to demonstrate that habits can easily reoccur. On one box, rats were conditioned with electric shocks. After this, they were moved to another box. It was found that the fear response of the rat was actually removed, but if the rat was put back in the first box, the fear response came again. This shows that one can get rid of habits. However, the question is if they will disappear for good? Unfortunately, the answer is a negative one, i.e., we can weaken the neural circuit, but we cannot kill it totally. Bad habits can come back and there are circumstances such as stress that makes their reappearance easier.
As the process of breaking bad habits is not always easy, which tools can I offer my clients when trying to fight undesirable habits? One possibility is to change the old habits by adopting new ones which are enjoyable and rewarding. The latter will engage the dopaminergic neurons in your prefrontal cortex-striatal-midbrain circuit, and make the process of wiring in the new habits quicker and easier. Also, paying little attention to an old bad habit can be helpful, any time a thought of an old habit comes into your head you should consciously and mindfully use it as a springboard to immediately jump onto another thought.
Finally, just by understanding why we behave the way we do, and realizing that we can consciously control the physical makeup of our brains, will serve as a powerful tool in managing ourselves and others.
And remember… If you do fall back into your old ways, don’t be too hard on yourself! Treat yourself with compassion. As Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Natalia Martinez, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Natalia is an international professional coach and facilitator based between Madrid and London. She works primarily with organizations, teams and individuals across a broad cross-section of industries. Her purpose is to help executives overcome limiting beliefs that might block their potential for change and growth. Natalia's strengths lie in her ability to work across cultural boundaries and to help people transition through change whilst remaining aligned with their deep-felt values.
Natalia has also been very active in team coaching and running leadership programmes at different levels ( from managers to board level programmes) with the aim to improve organisational performance, leadership skills and transition to change.
One of her main interests is diversity and inclusion (D&I). Natalia designs and delivers tailor-made D&I workshops, programmes and courses for organisations, teams and individuals in London and internationally.
