Self-hack: Why habits define our world
What was the first thing you did when you woke up today? Really, think… Chances are if you are like me and millions of others you did the same thing this morning as you did yesterday. Reach out for your phone to check your messages? Sluggishly trotter off to the bathroom? Drink some water? Say a prayer? These things have become so commonplace to you and I that we don’t even think about it anymore — we act because that is what we have always done. Some might call it a morning routine, others, however, understand it as a behavioural habit. These routines we form (our habits) then form the basic building blocks of our lives, they become part of what affects our actions, which in turn define our outcomes: our world.
Habits are great, I painfully remember how hard it was for me to learn to safely back out from my home’s narrow driveway when I first learnt to drive a car. I was so afraid of scratching my dad’s car on my way out of the house that I would often ask my neighbour, friends or whoever was around to help me be on the lookout so I wouldn't break something. However, after about three months of driving, backing out of the driveway soon became second nature. I would often be adjusting my commute playlist and thinking about the best route to take while simultaneously backing out of the driveway. It became second nature- a habit. We rely a lot on these types of simple habits to get a lot done in our day. Many people don’t remember how difficult it was at first to brush their teeth as a kid or put on their shoes properly. Even as adults we barely think about it. Do you put your shoes on left first? or right? A part of our brain called the Basal Ganglia takes care of these minute and repetitive tasks so that you can be more productive and focus on other things. This is one of the most primal parts of our brains but without it, you’d have to relearn how to button your shirt properly. Top to bottom? or bottom to top? Lol.
I was first exposed to the impact that seemingly small habits have on our human experience from the book “Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, but more on that later. To really understand habits and how they work, you need to first understand why habits are important and how they influence almost everything you do. To do this, I drew inspiration from a book I had read growing up, Why You Act the Way You Do by Tim LaHaye. Revisiting this classic, I quickly realized that the key to understanding why habits influence human outcomes lay at the most basic core of our identity as humans, our character. To explain it simply, your habits influence your character, that is your emotions, your will and mind. Further, your character is the core of your personality and would (except for in a Global pandemic) largely determine if you are more likely to be out on a Saturday with friends or in bed with a book (or laptop!), cancelling the plans you had earlier made thus shaping how you interact with the world and in particular, the decisions you make and actions you take.
The more you interact with habits, the more character you build. Take a very small habit like making your bed every morning once you wake up. At first, you have to put your mind to work in order to make an association between putting your feet on the floor and immediately reaching down to adjust your sheets and straighten out your pillows. No big deal right? However, for most people after about three to four days of doing this, they really need to exercise some will power to continue doing this. Soon enough, it becomes a reflex and one morning after not having to force yourself to do it, a small smile breaks through. You are then emotionally hooked. You now associate making your bed in the morning with a positive feeling.
You see how this process takes over your mind at first, then your will and then ends up influencing your emotions. You keep this up for a month or two and then seemingly small improvement has resulted in a character change. Sometimes you feel strange when you skip making your bed because you are late (for something) and you need to run. You can’t really place your finger on it but you know that you missed something. Small habit changes like this are the necessary stimulus for more impactful and drastic behavioural change and can be the motivation to tackle what Duhigg calls Keystone Habits — which are habits that enable and influence others. Kind of like the bottom layer in a house of cards.
Then there are destructive habits… anyone that has sought out habit change can testify to how much of one’s mind that a habit can come to possess, how much of one’s will is necessary to make even the smallest changes and how the whims of said habit (the habit loop itself and its outcomes) can come to influence one's emotions. With so much influence on your mental dispositions and actions, it becomes easy to form a link between a person’s character and the habits they hold. After all, a person that runs or works out daily is more likely to be disciplined and thus would be more likely to be perceived as a responsible. An alcoholic, on the other hand, is more likely to be rash or abrasive and thus likely to be perceived as irresponsible. These habit-based differences thus give us, and the world around us lenses to glimpse at human behaviour and make definitions as we see fit.
To conclude, it's important to realize that the habits you learn (and unlearn) are in your control and by changing your habits you can help your character mature and move in the direction of your choosing. Think of your character like a piggy bank, for every coin you put in or take out, you have the opportunity to become better or worse financially. Except, the coins are your habits and your finances are your outcomes in life.
