Why are old habits so difficult to change?

It seems they never go away. Here’s some science as to why they hang around when you really want them gone. In earlier blogs I wrote about how habits are formed, so a quick recap.

Create New Habits

Technically you can’t change a habit. So we create new habits. When you create a new habit the actions you take fire a bunch of neurons in the brain at the same time. As the saying goes ‘neurons that fire together, wire together’. The firing of the neurons will start the process of connecting them and then building neural pathways between them.

The more often you repeat an activity the more often the neurons fire together and this is what set up the habit. Another key part to strengthen the habits and the neural connections is a fatty tissue called Myelin.

The more often the habit is repeated the brains wraps more Myelin around the neural pathways to speed up the electric signals through the neural pathways and between the neurons. The continual repetition and the layering of myelin embeds the habit in the brain.

This is the simplified version of the process which sets up the habit and then strengthens it.

What About Our Old Habits

If you have a bunch of existing or old habits which you have been repeating for years, the connections between the neurons, the neural pathways, will be strong. They will be well wrapped with a good coating of Myelin too.

When you create a new habit to ‘replace’ the old habit, the old habit’s connections, neural pathways, and myelin covering will still be there. To ‘remove’ an existing habit, particularly one which has been with you for years is an extremely slow process.

From the brain’s perspective all it ‘sees’ is a whole bunch of connections, neural pathways, myelin tissue and many other things related to the connections. It doesn’t see a good habit or a bad habit. It just sees neurons and connections which are fire together when you repeat a habit/action.

On a side note, but a particularly important one, the brain is less than 2% of our body weight but uses 20% of the energy we burn each day. Even by using 20% of our daily energy the brain has finite resources, and it determines which neurons and neural pathways to ‘feed’ and keep connected, and which may be dismantled.

Dismantling old connections takes time and is a slow process. If you have stopped repeating a particular activity, action, or habit, it doesn’t mean the brain will completely dismantle those connections immediately.

This is why when you go for the tennis game during the summer and you haven’t played for a couple of years, you find you still ‘remember’ how to get a reasonable serve in even if you feel a little rusty. The connections and neural pathways which helped you play a reasonably good game of tennis 4 or 5 years ago haven’t been completely dismantle which is why you can still hit a good forehand (and even a nifty down the line backhand).

Hopefully, you are getting the picture on why it’s so difficult to completely lose those unwanted habits.  The dismantling process is extremely slow, and habits tend to ‘fade into the background’ rather than be completely dismantled and removed.

So, what can you do to give yourself the best chance of strengthening new habits you want and fading into the background the habits you don’t want?

Steps to get dismantling old unwanted habits.

Focus and consciously repeat a new habit.

Firstly, we can’t directly dismantle old habits! Remember this.

As I said earlier the brain just sees a bunch of firing neurons and neural pathways hooking them together. So, we must approach the dismantling of an old habit indirectly.

The key is to focus on the new habit. One which is going to replace the old habit. Again, I want to repeat, the brain will not know you are replacing an old habit with a new one – it just sees neurons and neural pathways which are used and those which are either not used or infrequently used.

If you have a new habit, then focus and repeat this as often as you can. Repetition of a new habit/action/activity is the key to making the habit stick. The more often you can repeat the habit the more the brain will fire the neurons and strengthen the neural pathways. It’s as simple as that.

As we know it sounds simple and straightforward but can be tough to maintain. Plus, at every turn, and every day, the old habit is looming large in the background, and the brain will want to flip into the old habit rather than having set up a new one and all its neural pathways. Setting up new habits and all the stuff which goes with it uses up a lot of energy and the resources available to the brain.

The fight is on you with your own brain! Repetition is the key to build the new habit and indirectly get the brain to start the process of dismantling the old habit – hopefully you are not repeating the old habit as this will make it tougher. Stick with the new habit and it will happen – in time.

Use visualisation to strengthen new habits.

Just to make sure we are on the same page when it comes to visualisation, this is when you go through the motions of the habit in your mind. You visualise yourself carrying out the activity, the actions, the habit. This is a powerful tool and technique to help with the embedding a new habit.

We used to do a lot of this as kids…used to be called day-dreaming! Sadly, the education system, work, and adulthood seems to wither this important skill!

To see just how powerful it can be let’s talk about Michael Phelps. The swimmer who won 28 medals at the Olympics. He was a keen and regular visualiser. He used the technique to prepare for his races.

His visualisation exercise started with him seeing himself get up in the morning, get ready, go down for breakfast, make his way to the competition area, go through stretching exercises, even changing into his swimming gear and all the way up to diving into the pool at the start of a race.

This may be a little extreme, but it helped him win a lot of races. It wasn’t the only thing, but it played an important part.  Of course, you don’t have to go these lengths!

You can start simply by visualising the piece of the habit you want to focus on. If you want to go for a run you can start with seeing yourself getting changed, heading out the door, and then running for 5 minutes or 1,000 metres. You could visualise the whole path you want to run. Or like Michael Phelps, you can visualise the whole routine from getting changed to finishing with stretching exercises before jumping into the shower – your call.

Another example may be at work. In the office you want to be more product. You can visualise a clean desk, a file with your top or important project, and you working through it for an amount of time or completing it before starting on another piece of work.

Visualise yourself going through the process but more importantly doing the work which will be part of the new habit.

I hope you are getting the idea.

A Visualisation Exercise To Get Started

If you are new to visualisation, it may be good to get a little practise in! A good way to start is:

• Sit somewhere comfortably.
• Close your eyes – similar to getting ready to meditate.
• Now see yourself sat in the chair exactly where you are.
• Visualise yourself get up and walk to the kitchen and then walk back and sit back down.
• Try to visualise as much of the journey to the kitchen and back

That’s it!

Over time you can add to the exercise by getting a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water. Or making a cup of coffee. Or feeding the cat. The possibilities are endless.

Then you can start the practice of visualising the habit you want to create and strengthen.

Why and how does this work?

If you have ever had a vivid dream, right at that point you will have thought, and experienced, it was real. The brain doesn’t distinguish between images from our reality and those in our dream or visualisations. They are just images.

This is useful when it comes to visualisation and strengthening habits, because the same neurons and neural pathways light up or fire, whether you visualise a habit/action or when you carry out the habit/action physically. The brain then strengthens the neural pathways simply because we imagined it inside our mind!

Using this ‘hack’ you can embed new habits a little quicker, but nothing is better than carrying out the habit physically.

CAUTION: Visualisation does have a downside. Just as you can strengthen your willingness to go for that run as your new habit, thinking about your old habit will also strengthen the old habit! Yes, thinking about your old habit will keep it connected and strengthened and make it difficult to dismantle it. This is the reason you ought to focus on the new habit and avoid even thinking about the old habit. Easier said than done, but at least you know.

Reward Yourself

The third way to help strengthen new habits so your brain can dismantle the old habits is to give yourself a reward each time you complete the new habit. It doesn’t have to be anything major. A simple self-talk of “Great, you did it” will suffice. Any kind of self-congratulation will help, as it signals to the brain that this habit is important, and it makes you happy.

After all, one of the drivers of the brain is to keep you happy.

I would be careful about giving yourself rewards such as chocolate cake, beer, or a ‘go large meal’. Those can become habits quickly which you may (will) regret at some point.

Keep it simple. Even a smile to yourself or a small punch in the air will do.

Summary

Although we want to get rid of old habits, we can’t do this direct, which is why we have focused on embedding and rewarding new habits. As the brain has finite resources (physically) it will determine which habits to keep and which it will dismantle.

The habits, routines, and activities which we reduce will them candidates for the brain to dismantle their neural pathways (nearly).  Once the process of dismantling begins at some point you are less likely to fall back into old habits!