BREAKING THE HABIT "So there I was on the couch, smashing a second helping of carbonara into my face, contemplating not whether or not I would have ice cream afterwards, but rather if I would top it with strawberry or chocolate Nesquick, when a reach for the salt caused the obviously too tight belt to actually cut into the muffin top, resulting in a little wince in pain! Where the hell had it all gone wrong? From a seriously abstemious month of January that saw me drop around 10 kg’s and get fit enough to do the Argus and a 1 mile swim on consecutive weekends to wheezing half way through a spin class … From not boozing at all in January to indulging three nights in a row … From All Bran for brekki, almonds as a morning snack, a tuna salad for lunch, a protein shake for the afternoon snack, and no carbs at all after 16h00 to an ice cream chaser after a double helping of pasta for supper … It is just incredible how good habits, created through hours of hard work, can slowly be eroded, suddenly becoming bad habits, without you even noticing! Skip the All Bran and pick up a coffee and egg McMuffin on the way back from dropping your kid off at school … It’s so much easier, and there is no washing up … Replace the almonds with cashews or macadamias for a week, and the next week it is a peanut butter sarmie with butter … Out to lunch with a client and instead of the tuna salad, you go for the burger, but with salad instead of chips … The next week the chips replace the salad … The twice weekly hour long spin drops to 45 minutes, then 30 minutes with a steam bath, then just the steam bath followed by a ceasar wrap and a smoothie! Sure, you are aware of the changes, but in your mind, you keep saying to yourself, “Not to worry, tomorrow I will do the right thing”, or “From next week it is back to the straight and narrow” … And then you have a glass of wine or three with Sunday lunch and the straight and narrow gets postponed … Messy … So I got on the net to read a little about this habit thing … The definition of a habit: *A settled or regular tendency or practice, esp. one that is hard to give up. *A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behaviour that is acquired through frequent repetition. *An established disposition of the mind or character. *Customary manner or practice. *An addiction, especially to a narcotic drug. See that last one! Hence it being so damn tough to give up smoking and the presence of AA clubs round the world – and not the ones that jump start your car in the Karoo. I am not quite in that league, but my oath – try and get a packet of choc peanuts away from me while on the couch watching Masterchef! So not being prone to moderation, I am going to go cold turkey for a few weeks and try and pull myself toward myself, but for those less prone to these extreme measures, below is a 5 step process recommended for breaking a habit: 1) Admit that you have a problem. Acknowledging that you have a habit you’d like to break is vital. Consider the ways that the habit alters or affects your life, and accept that you’d like to change this. 2) Change your environment. Research suggests that sometimes our environments can cue us to perform certain behaviors, even if we’re actively trying to stop. 3) Find a way to change your scenery and see if your bad habit becomes less tempting. 4) Create barriers to the habit. If your reason for avoiding the habit is more pressing than your desire to engage in it, the behavior will become continually easier to avoid. 5) Find a placeholder. Try to replace your habit with something new and positive in your life. The key is not to focus on the “not doing”, but to think instead about “doing.” Be patient. Behavioral conditioning is a long process, and breaking a habit takes time – as much as you’d like to, you probably won’t stop doing it overnight. Set realistic goals and plan to have the behavior wiped out in 30 days. If you get to the end of a month and find you need more time, take another 30 days. As long as you’re still improving, don’t pay too much attention to how long the process is taking. You’ll get there eventually." ~Tank Lanning
Posted on: Mon, 22 Jul 2013 12:01:40 +0000
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