How I've Harnessed Habits...To Break Old Habits
The habits that define intentional, incremental change
It wasn’t until I was in college to become a teacher that I had the shocking realization that the point of school was to learn.
It’s INSANE for that to be an epiphany, remembering the day I made the connection still makes me laugh. It felt so profound it was like I’d seen the literal hand of God.
I had become very comfortable and successful in school. I’d learned the pattern and created habits that facilitated success. I was easy-going and compliant so I just did the things that people told me to do as best I could, and that was the point. I didn’t think twice about why.
Looking back, after having my mind blown by something everyone else knew, I felt like I’d robbed myself of a deeper, more enriching school experience. I’d spent thousands of hours in school and didn’t feel like I’d made the most of what I was offered. I wasn’t unhappy, I was very comfortable and content. But I wasn’t fulfilled by school.
This is because acting without purpose is hollow. Without awareness there cannot be intention. Without intention there cannot be purpose. Without purpose there cannot be fulfillment.
Fulfillment is a by-product of awareness.
Habits define our lives
Most daily behavior is habitual. The best predictor of what we’ll choose today is what we chose yesterday. Habits create comfort and predictability. They feed the illusion of control that many of us depend on. Habits allow us to live without awareness.
I’ve discovered that most of my life is run by habits, with varying degrees of awareness. Habits also seem to have an undeserved, negative reputation. This is because the habits people typically bring awareness to, and work to change, are habits that become obviously harmful. If we consider all daily, repeated behaviors we owe our habit-forming selves A TON OF GRATITUDE.
Daily, repeated behaviors are the foundation of every long-term skill, goal, relationship, or success. Our mind, body, and spirit are created and maintained by our habits. Our way of being is defined by the tiniest daily choices.
The Habits of Fulfillment
Habits facilitate a comfortable life but they do not guarantee a fulfilling one.
With my school experience I was comfortable and successful but I didn’t enjoy the fullness of what was available because of my limited awareness. The fullness of any experience hinges on our ability to be present and engaged as an active participant.
This means that our daily habits need to move from unconscious choices to conscious ones. But the problem with unconscious behavior is … well, it’s unconscious. How do we become aware of something beyond our awareness?
Here are some examples that have helped me recognize unconscious behaviors:
If you can do it without remembering you did it.
When you do it, you’re usually thinking about something else.
It’s connected to some other feeling-state (typically discomfort but not always) or experience we’d rather avoid like pain or fear.
We depend on superlatives like “I’ve always” or “I never” to describe why we do it.
We depend on after-the-fact justifications (which are not the same as reasons why), we “needed to” or “had to,” as if there were no alternatives.
We don’t even experiment with alternatives.
It’s handed to us by someone else or has been deemed essential by a parent, caregiver, friend, or partner.
It’s creating disorder within our mind, body, or spirit (or all three).
It’s what “everyone else,” or someone else does. Our culture is sick, depressed, and falling apart…Following along is unconscious.
For each of us there are many daily behaviors that meet these (or other still unconscious) criteria.
In order to recover fulfillment in our daily life we will need to pick up a few habits: awareness, compassion, contemplation, and incremental intention.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit” - Will Durant, inspired by Aristotle
The Habits of Awareness
(For the sake of this article, attention and awareness are interchangeable.)
The opportunity for awareness is often counter to increased awareness. We are COVERED in devices that shout for our attention, but in most cases this data is NOT creating healthier bodies, calmer minds, or better relationships.
I can track my sleep, heart rate, calories in and out, spending down to the cent, glucose, screen time, even my time “meditating,” and as you know, so much more …
But how I feel when I indulge in my habitual behavior?? Forget about it! We don’t have time for THAT. Plus the only device that will ever offer that kind of feedback is a feeling-state, not a data set…feeling states that are easily avoided with attention-grabbing distractions.
The abundance of data and information available has resulted in a net loss of awareness. We’re too busy paying attention to…well, everything…that slowing down enough to truly feel the feedback life is offering is challenging. We must proactively create new habits that facilitate inner awareness.
The Habit of Compassion
The greatest barrier to inner awareness is judgment.
We spend so much energy and attention on shaming, blaming, and labelling ourselves that we aren’t able to bring awareness to our own behavior. Rather than view habits as good or bad we can see that they are all solving problems.
Full awareness asks us to acknowledge what benefit any habit is bringing to our life and recognize that we choose these behaviors despite their cost. They are serving our mind, body, or spirit … but probably not optimally.
To optimize habits we must first see them fully, the value they are creating and the costs. There are likely hundreds of other ways to create the same value for the mind, body, or spirit; but other options aren’t viable if we don’t understand their purpose.
No person’s costly (alternative to “bad”) or optimal (alternative to “good”) habit is beyond understanding. We will not have full awareness if there is any incentive to protect ourselves from the truth.
In practice this means that the next time I eat the whole pint of Ben n’ Jerry’s late at night (one of many costly habits of mine) I can pause and notice … Why now? Why this? What problems is this solving for me? What was happening when the idea entered my head? Is there a pattern to notice? A need to address?
There’s nothing bad or good about behavior, it happened … each action is an opportunity for exploration. Start small, without judgment.
The Habit of Contemplation
Quiet time does not happen incidentally in 2024.
The answers for what we need and want cannot be derived from outside sources (though it is inspired by them), which means we must spend time within–in communion with ourselves, insulated from our regular distractions and routines.
Time in nature, time journaling, time driving without listening to something, meditation, pausing in silence after listening to something. Whatever it is, we must make time for quiet time–practicing presence, listening, being.
“The ultimate goal of contemplation is to bring both our inner and outer lives into balance. Then we can be inwardly fulfilled and outwardly content. Contemplation achieves this aim through teaching us how to cultivate a sense of presence. We will learn that the true purpose of life is not something we are here to do, rather it is something we are here to be.” - Richard Rudd
The Habit of Incremental Intention
Most goals are B.S.1 They can be more debilitating than motivating when formed to eliminate some aspect of ourselves that we do not love or accept, or when aimed at elusive ideals.
Fulfillment cannot be measured externally and it cannot be created by comparison.
Intention is everything.
Incremental intention is aimed at our smallest choices rather than our biggest goals. Forming a habit of incremental intention means that we notice our behavior in real time and honor our mind, body, and spirit here and now.
Habits are formed, released, and maintained through tiny daily choices. Whether we are disrupting old habits or forging new ones it requires frequent, incremental, intentional, present-focused effort. Not teeth gritting, white knuckling effort, just awareness and intention.
The broader and bigger the “increment” of our intention the less likely we will be to choose optimally. Unconscious justifications just need time, distance, or distractions…Which will reliably appear every time.
Even when choosing a “costly” behavior, intentionally choosing it and actually experiencing it is a game changer. Sin like you mean it! Or in other words, when you choose to “sin,” mean it! Intention allows the unconscious to become conscious. If you “meant to,” your meaning making mind will conure new stories to justify why. Stories that will deepen your awareness.
Intention, attention, intention, attention–the fuel for fulfillment. The habits to optimize all other habits.
Compassion and contemplation are vital because change happens incrementally, intentionally, slowly, and subtly…here and now.
“Beliefs are theories. Actions are experiments. Emotions are feedback. Life is a science and its objective is growth.” - Mark Manson
If you haven’t read it yet, you’re the only person on Earth who hasn’t... Atomic Habits is amazing and James Clear creates great content on habits that’s full of practical ideas. He debunks goals in a way that is reasonable and insightful. Highly recommend.
I loved this one, Kinley! Thanks for taking the time to write it!