Habit Hacking: Work with Your Brain

“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures” – F.M. Alexander

When you hear the word ‘habit’ what do you feel? All the times you’ve tried to change a habit and you didn’t make it? Getting a sense of dread? Feeling like a failure? (a quick reminder: the only way you ‘fail’ is if you don’t learn anything from whatever happened).

It’s all too easy to set out with a goal of adding a healthy habit, or removing or modifying one that doesn’t serve us, and then not quite get there.

It makes sense, when we have done something a certain way for a long time, our brain is on auto pilot, and the neurons have wired together pretty hard. It will take more than a snap of the fingers to change. But I don’t believe in the saying “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks”. Well, maybe it’s true for dogs, but is not true for humans! We are lucky enough to have the ability to change and learn throughout our lives.

And it won’t always be easy.

It will require a game plan. Wishing and hoping isn’t enough.

Luckily for you I have a few hacks for you!

Often times we think of habits in black and white terms: either you succeed, or you don’t. I want to expand your thinking a bit. Let’s say that your habit goal is to work out for 30 minutes every day. You know it’s so good for you: it’ll lower your stress, you a building your lung capacity and more.

You might not get to 30 minutes every day, and please remember that every minute is a step in the right direction! 10 minutes also counts. It’s only a ‘fail’ if you label it as such. You can just as well choose to say ‘Look at me go! I got 10 minutes today!’ and celebrate that.