Personal Resilience

Hello, my name is Diana Brecher. And I’m here to talk to you about habit formation and its importance in our capacity to be more intentional in our behaviours generally, so that we can make better choices so that we can take charge of our energy. Because once we’re doing something as part of a habit, we don’t have to devote a lot of thought to it. So things come with much less effort, we can be more productive, we can engage with more focus and higher energy because the good habits that we bring into our lives are all in service of our long-term goals. So in order to talk about habits, we really have to start off by talking about willpower and the myth that willpower is actually going to see us through any behaviour we choose. It turns out that willpower is a finite resource, and the more we use it, the less we have access to it. And so in the course of a day, we might end up using up our willpower to get up on time, to get to our tasks, to eat a healthy breakfast and by midday, we may have used up the willpower that we have at our disposal. And then, we’re left stranded unless we have made the choice to turn certain behaviours into habits. And so I want to talk about how that can be done. So there are some clear steps in creating a new habit and this is based on research that’s been done in the field of psychology.

And the first concept I want to introduce is something called the 20-Second Rule. So Shawn Achor, who is a Professor of Psychology from Harvard, he wrote a book called “The Happiness Advantage.” And he talks about the idea that we can reduce friction between us and the behaviour we want to engage in by removing the first 20 seconds of obstacles between us and our intended action. And so for example, let’s say you want to start playing guitar, but the guitar is sitting in the case and the case in the closet, you never play it. But what if you were to take the guitar out of the case, put it in the middle of your room on a stand, you’re much more likely to play it every day because it’s right there. There’s no obstacle between you and your intended action. And the opposite is also true. Let’s say you wanted to stop snacking late at night. So if you made the decision, I’m going to start brushing my teeth after dinner and flossing my teeth. Then when you’re faced with that urge to go into the kitchen and grab a snack, you might say to yourself, already brushed my teeth, I’m gonna have to do it again later. And it might serve as a deterrent. So the first step in creating or stopping a habit is to use that 20-second rule. I want to explain that there are some habits that actually matter more than others. What does that mean?

[A slide, entitled “Keystone Habits”, comes up and shows the illustration of a stone bridge. An arrow points to the stone at the centre of the bridge, which is identified as a “keystone component”.]

So if we look at the notion of it being a keystone habit, in this drawing of a bridge, the keystone is that centrepiece that holds the rest of the pieces together. And similarly, a keystone habit is a habit that if you change that one behaviour, subsequent behaviours become easier to modify, because that first one is like a linchpin. So for example, keystone habits could be something like keeping to a good sleep schedule. So if you get a good night’s sleep every night, and maybe all kinds of other behaviours fall into line afterwards. Actually, attending class could be a keystone habit, organizing your day in advance, preparing your meals in advance so you’re not just taking grabbable food out of the fridge, but you’re actually planning what you’re going to eat. Exercising regularly and having it booked into your schedule, meditating regularly and increasing that kind of mindfulness capacity can be a keystone habit for all the other ones. So what are the benefits of habits? They basically save us energy, time and thought. So it turns out that about 43% of our behaviour generally, is done on automatic, it’s a habit, we don’t think about it, we just do it. So anything from tying your shoelaces to playing a musical instrument riding a bike, exercising in certain places at certain times, all kinds of complex behaviours can also be made into habits, but it takes a lot of repetition and intention for that to happen.

So what do we know about building new habits? Well, first of all, you have to get started, and it is usually very hard to get started on a new behaviour. So if you implement the 20-second rule of either removing obstacles to something you want to start, or inserting obstacles to something you’d like to refrain from doing, that can get you started. You have to then practice often. And there’s research on different activities on how long can different things take. But suffice it to say is, whatever you choose to start to do, you have to trust that multiple times of repetition is actually what’s going to lead to it becoming automatic, it may not be 10 times, it might be 30, it might be 60, it might be 90 times. You can also really tap into your support system to get people to support you in this new behaviour, either becoming like an exercise buddy, or someone who gives you emotional support. There are lots of different ways to access support. But that can make a big difference in the successful kind of process of building a new habit.

[A new slide, entitled “Habit Loop in Advertising”, appears and shows a cycle with 3 elements: a mouth illustrates a “cue”, a toothbrush illustrates a “routine” and a shiny smile illustrates the “reward”.]

So a lot of the research in the field of habit formation actually comes from a 1920s advertising campaign in the United States where the president of the toothpaste Pepsodent went to an advertising company and said, “I want the American public to start buying my product, and I want you to make them want to do it.” So they came up with this idea that there has to be a cue to act on behaviour, the routine is the behaviour, and then, there has to be a tangible reward. And that reward then feeds back into the queue. So in the case of toothpaste, most people wake up in the morning with a kind of dry or filmy taste in their mouth. If they brush their teeth, they have this cue, which is like, “Oh, my mouth will feel fresh!” And so that’s the reward. And then they’re likely to do it again the next day. So they took this idea of kind of a natural cycle, and then intentionally implemented it for advertising but it’s what we can use when we want to engage in any new behaviour. So Charles Duhigg, who wrote the book “The Power of Habit”, he identifies six steps to creating a new habit. You have to choose the cue, what is going to tell you that this is the time to begin to implement that behaviour, you have to build in a reward to the activity, either inherent into that activity or that you add to that activity. And I’ll explain that in a moment. You have to crave and want the reward, you have to practice often. Announcing your intentions can be very helpful because it builds in a kind of accountability, like if you say to a study buddy, “I’m planning to go to every class this semester.” And then you have to let them know whether or not you follow through with that commitment. And also asking for support.

Maybe it’s a reminder from friends saying, “Oh, you’re in the same class together, are you coming to class now?” So, here’s an example around exercise. So you need to in choosing the cue to something that will remind you to get started on your habit. It should be simple, accessible, obvious and compelling. So if you want to start exercising three times a week, you might want to make a commitment to go for a run in the morning, and have everything set up from the night before your running clothes, shoes, water bottle, anything else you might need. Or maybe it’s you’re gonna plan to join a friend on an online yoga class a few times. Those kinds of intentional commitments with the time and place can be very helpful to help remind you this is the activity you want to start doing. Then you want to reward yourself. So for exercise, you could be rewarding yourself with one or all of these: an endorphin rush, maybe the idea of weight loss or getting into shape or stress release, social time with friends, fun. The reward has to be part of it. And let’s say you’re running on a treadmill and the treadmill is really boring but what if you were able to access a Netflix show that you really enjoy that you only watch when you’re on the treadmill.

And so then you get this reward built into that activity, and then you start to crave the reward. You want to have that enjoyment associated with that behaviour. So it’s important to not give up too soon. Practicing often is the key to habit formation. So multiple times. The other thing that you want to consider is something called the 15-minute rule. And I learned this from Christine Padesky, who is a very prominent psychologist who talks about how hard it is to get started. But once we get started, there’s a momentum that takes over. So if you trust that the first 15 minutes will be harder than you think but that with time, it’s going to get easier and easier, it can really help you with the practicing. So 15-minute rule, and then following your plan, not your mood. So when you make the plan to exercise three times a week, go for that run, or that yoga class or whatever, you made the plan, and you thought it was a good one. But then when the time comes up, you don’t feel like it. So don’t worry about how you feel, trust that the plan was a good one, and follow that plan and the 15-minute Rule and then you get over that initial hump that makes it hard to start that new behaviour and then take it on, and it becomes something that you are able to do. You also want to announce your intentions.

[A new slide, entitled “Announce your intentions”, appears and reads: Accountability is important. It keeps you honest and on track.]

So can you tell someone in your life about the new behaviour that you want to make into a habit is and then report back to them regularly? And it becomes a way for you to kind of stick to the plan no matter what. You also want to ask for support. So some habits are harder than others. And you might want to get someone to be part of your cheerleading section to really help you stick with a really tough habit that you want to build into your life. There’s another strategy that’s really interesting. This is based on research by Wendy Wood. She says you can stack your habits so you’re really taking advantage of an existing habit to build in a new one. So let’s say you have to start taking medication either first thing in the morning or just before you go to bed at night. So could you put the medication next to that first cup of coffee in the morning or next to your toothbrush? As a reminder, “oh, yeah, I have to do these at the same time.” So you already have an existing habit, which takes no effort. And then you kind of piggybacking on to the existing habit with something new that you have to start to do. Another thing you can do is swap your habits. So if you want to break a bad habit, you can replace it with something that’s a little similar, but more aligned with your goals. So let’s say you’re eating too many desserts. And it really is what you need, you need to have something sweet at the end of that meal. So could you replace ice cream or chocolate with fruit? So you’re still having a dessert, it’s still somewhat sweet, but it’s not as bad. Or an example that is commonly used in the literature is for people who have an alcohol problem and go to Alcoholics Anonymous. They’re drinking coffee in a meeting instead of having a beer with friends in a bar. And you know, maybe it’s not as much fun but these are people who’ve made a commitment to not drink alcohol. And so they’re swapping one kind of drink with another. So you might want to think about what can you swap in your own life to make that new habit formation more likely.

[A new slide, entitled “The cycle of Change, Prochaska & DiClemente”, appears and includes a cycle chart, captioned “Transtheoretical Model of Change—Prochaska & DiClemente”. The cycle contains 6 milestones: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, relapse.]

And I want to just talk about this notion of the cycle of change. So Prochaska and DiClemente are two psychologists who are really interested in how does change happen when people choose to implement a new behaviour and a new habit, not because they’re in a program that’s helping them do it, but just because they decided to do it. So they interviewed people who were smokers, who were able to quit smoking and drinkers who were able to stop drinking alcohol. And what they identified were six stages of change.

So we started pre-contemplation. And very often, that’s when the person will say, I know I have a problem, but I have no interest in doing anything to change it. Contemplation is saying, “My partner really wants me to quit smoking. I don’t really want to, it’s really hard. I’m here to kind of find out if I could do it, but I’m not really ready yet.” Then, there’s the preparation stage when you’ll say to yourself, “Okay, I think I can do this. I think I’m going to start on a particular date, and this is what I have that’s going to help me do it.”

So there’s a lot of preparation and thinking. Then there’s the action phase where you actually, for example, quit smoking or quit drinking. And that will stay depending on how addicted you are for a certain amount of time. And then you move into maintenance where you don’t have to work so hard to remember and kind of use your willpower to stick to the habit that you want to change. But you just moved into maintenance. And so for some people, maintenance lasts indefinitely. And for other people, they may maintain for a long period of time, and then they have a relapse. And that relapse is kind of falling back into their old behaviours, which is quite common. But then the important thing is, what do you do then? Do you kind of say, “Okay, I give up, I’m never going to be able to change this habit.” Or do you jump back in and maybe move right back into contemplation or even preparation, where you say, “Okay, I made a mistake, but now I’m ready to come.” And so this notion of change is that it’s a cycle, and with a great deal of self-compassion, and kind of understanding, recognizing that some behaviours are harder than others to change, and it’s simply a matter of saying, “Okay, I’m ready to go back in and try again.”

And so that concludes our discussion about habits. You are welcome to contact me at these coordinates (Diana Brecher: dbrecher@ryerson.ca) or my colleague Fenella (Fenella Amarasinghe—Senior Manager, Education Planning and Development—famarasinghe@ryerson.ca) if you have any questions about habits or about the video. Thank you very much.

Dr. Brecher: I’d like to talk a little bit about how what we know about habits can make a big difference in terms of what would be most helpful for your students to take on a new habit or to consolidate habits that are behaviours that perhaps they’re beginning to engage in but have not made them habits yet. So let’s talk about how this kind of knowledge that now the students will have can really help them to become better students and also engage in the self-care necessary to do this long-term very robust studying.

So what are the habits you want your students to build in order to be successful in this course or in their program? Maybe it’s about time management, so how are they managing their time in the course of the day in a kind of mindful way where they’re not going to push through five hours in a hit but actually take regular breaks, get away from their desk, go for a walk, do something else for a while, come back to it, then making sure that they’re drinking enough and eating nutritionally and really engaging in self-care in the context of the whole day, even though they have all these obligations to their studies.

Time management is not just scheduling, it’s actually thinking about the human being in the context of being a student, how long can they focus and concentrate, be productive before they need to refresh, take a break, and then come back to it. So that might be one set of habits that they need to start considering. Another relates to their actual studies skills. So what do we mean when we say study skills? It could be as simple as are they coming to class prepared, having done whatever work or reading that they needed to do before class? Are they able to take good, succinct, clear, coherent notes? Do they review their notes after class and generate questions for things, that perhaps, they haven’t fully understood and then follow up with that? Do they do the assigned work in a timely fashion? Are they engaged in critical thinking? That is a habit too but we have to create space for it. And is that something that they will do with one other classmate or in small groups and can you facilitate that critical thinking by giving provocative questions that get them to really think about the material on another level? Do they actively participate in class and can you help cultivate that habit of participation through the atmosphere in the class, that it is safe to take risks to ask a question that you don’t understand or to give a guess of an answer that may or may not be right and they are they being punished for that guess or they’re being rewarded for trying to really wrestle with the problem?

Engaging in learning groups can be a very active habit that students can begin to take on where they can learn from one another and really deepen their understanding of what they’ve learned in class through discussion and helping each other through the more complex concepts. So when we talk about habits we’re talking about behaviours, and habits are behaviours that we no longer have to consciously think about because they are now automatic. And what we want to do is build in really productive habits so that we’re not spending as much effort in achieving our goals because certain things are already scaffolded in to help us with our goals because they’ve now become a behaviour that we do without a lot of effort or a lot of thinking we just do it because we know it’s part of the process. Thank you very much.