Breaking negative habits is one of the areas of work with my clients, as a coach. By negative habits I understand behaviors that are well embedded on my clients’ subconscious mind and that are not aligned with his/her objectives and goals. Whenever a client is trying to change such type of behavior, the most powerful tool I have found to use is helping him/her to “create a space for the change”. The principle is simple: when a gap is introduced between the thought and the action, it opens the room for alternative, more positive behaviors.
It all starts with what my friend and mentor Paul Martinelli calls observational thinking. Paul teaches how powerful it is to observe ourselves doing things, while we slooooow down the rhythm. We can start practicing the exercise with day to day things, like cutting your meat or tying your shoes. As you slow down, you become aware of all the movements, actions and thoughts that happen during that activity, which were put in automatic pilot over the years. When and where did you learn to do such and such thing? Why do we do things in a certain way and not differently?
Through this process we get to realize that our habits have their origin in one of those categories:
Many of our habits come from learning from others, who teach us things based on what they learnt themselves from others, who learnt from others, and so on. You can find in this category some unconscious “family traditions”, or the principles and learning models we develop when going through our educational system.
Other habits found their origin in a reaction to a situation we experienced or witnessed being younger. We didn’t realize it, but as time passed by, an isolated action became our modus operandi for a specific type of situation. The fact that some situation makes us feel uncomfortable without apparent reason and unchains a specific reaction, may come from this factor, for example.
Other habits come from what we learnt by ourselves. We did solve a specific problem in a specific way that worked for us at that time, and we kept doing it for years, without questioning whether we were using the most optimized or appropriate solution.
We can apply the same principle when working with habits that interfere with our goals. So, when we decide for example to not make that cold call into a lead, skip the gym session or eat that piece of cake, we can also sloooooow down things and get to reflect on them:
What is the reason behind not doing (or doing) such or such thing?
When and where did I develop that learning model of quitting?
What are my options or alternatives?
What are the consequences of each of them?
Which ones are aligned with my objectives and goals?
How will I feel after choosing and acting on one or the other?
What do I choose to do?
By asking yourself that series of questions, you create a space, which breaks the pattern established in your subconscious mind, between a thought and a reaction to it. By breaking the pattern, you open the door for an alternative behavior, which will bring an alternative result, hopefully closer to your goal. With practice and over time, you may reprogram your subconscious mind, creating new patterns, more aligned with your goals and the person you want to become.
As you can see, there is real power in the gap. As Paul likes to explain, what keeps the tiger inside the cage is not the bars, it is the space between them. The same bars separated by a bigger space would be completely useless. And the beauty we can appreciate when listening to a symphony, comes from the fact that we are able to perceive a separation, a space, between the notes.
So, next time you feel “trapped” in a bad habit… give yourself some space to choose what to do… and let me know how it goes.
Let me ask you this: How do you deal with the habits you have, that are not aligned with your goals? How do you manage to avoid that these habits sabotage your success? I would love to read your inputs below.
Have an intentional day. Grow. Reach your goals. Have an impact. Make a difference.
To your success,
Ezequiel
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