The crucial ingredient in habit formation
Note: a slightly longer article today. Longer stories!
I am passionate about my work, future-proofing leaders, teams, and individuals. A crucial step in the future-proofing process is habit formation. And this requires some form of change. And change does not happen without a shift in behaviour and for behaviours to last it needs to become a habit. Habit formation.
But there is so much that goes into habit formation. We are human after all, and change is not something the brain likes. Because of our neurobiology, change requires the creation of new neural pathways to offset behaviours we want to change (old neural pathways).
Last weekend was a busy weekend. I attended several functions and met up with friends whom I had not seen in a while.
Conversations soon turned to future-proofing our health. Some of my friends are literate in this area and we had a different conversation. But others, my classmates, are new to this. When I explained what I did (changed) over the last 6 years, they were shocked.
First, they could not believe that future-proofing our health is possible and then they do what everyone I mention this to does; ask for my functional medicine doctor’s number.
But over the last six years, at least 30 people (friends and family) have gotten my doctor’s number from me. My stories of future-proofing my and my husband’s health inspired them to want the same. But that’s where their journey starts and ends. Here’s the statistics:
· Approximately 30 people got my doctor’s number from me.
· ONLY 3 called
· and ONLY 1 followed through!
One friend asked for the number several times over the last 5 years saying she had misplaced it. The last time was late last year. She still has not made the call! It’s too late now, my doctor has migrated, and she stopped taking new patients early this year.
That’s the glaring reality.
Although people were inspired, getting to the start line was hard let alone cross it!
Which is why inspirational speeches don’t work in the long term. They get you high for a few hours (maybe days if you are lucky) and when the reality of your life breaks this trance, you find yourself back on the treadmill of life unable to get off and make a change.
So, what was different about my one friend who followed through?
But first another friend’s story. This friend eventually called my doctor after I pleaded that it would help him and his family. I pleaded for 2 years! He finally called my doctor this year. But she couldn’t take him on. I asked him what the trigger was (to make the call). He said if I had told him that it would help him lose weight, he would have called 2 years ago!
I needed to talk to his pain (challenge). Which is the first principle of marketing, knowing what your customer’s main challenge is. What’s keeping them up at night?
But I think there is a step deeper than this and that is committing mentally to the journey to begin with! Though I say mental commitment, it is mental and emotional. (Commitment is an emotion but this is for another day).
I know this friend well. His journey with my doctor would have needed him to change his diet 180 degrees. Something which, 2 years ago, put him off. “I can’t change the way I eat”. This is something that is required when working holistically on our health. But I can’t know if he would have followed through, with changing his diet, this year if my doctor agreed to see him.
But I know what works and I have the neuroscience and research to back it. Habit formation starts with a mental commitment to change. But it takes effort. Even today, if I don’t commit, the night before, to run the next morning, 9 times out of 10 I don’t go for a run the next morning!
It’s that simple.
Commitment!
Inspirational speakers often speak of their journey, their commitment, what THEY care about, and what worked for THEM, NOT the audience. Like me with my friends and family! But we all want and care about different things for our future self and what works for me may not work for you.
We can all be inspired by others but it’s up to us to convert that inspiration to a commitment that matters to us. I inspired 30 people but only 1 friend converted that inspiration to a commitment that mattered to her!
We can change in a heartbeat if we commit to it, but it requires us to be clear about what we want - our vision for future self or addressing what’s hurting us. For my friend, it was losing weight. Not overall health and well-being (my agenda for him). That wasn’t top of mind for him. His weight was!
What do you want for your future self and can you commit to it?
Because it’s easier once you commit!
As always, you can reach me yoga@yoganesadurai.com