Week 4 / Analyzing and Balancing
"We can’t expect to pay attention to everything at once. Remember the “set and forget” function of the brain—the bit that helps us develop habits so that we can save our energy to learn new things? Habit tells us, “This worked before, so don’t think about it, just keep doing it.” This is where paying attention is helpful if we are looking to break out of our old routines.”
Brewer, Judson. The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We're Not Hungry and How to Stop (p. 99). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. ."
Research has shown that once a person believes in a particular aspect of their identity, they are more likely to act in alignment with that belief. For example, people who identified as “being a voter” were more likely to vote than those who simply claimed “voting” was an action they wanted to perform. Similarly, the person who incorporates exercise into their identity doesn’t have to convince themselves to train. Doing the right thing is easy. After all, when your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be.
Clear, James. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (pp. 34-35). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
How habits happen
We're creating habits whether we mean to or not. It might start with a bit of niggling for something sweet one evening that prompts us to have a little ice cream. There's nothing wrong with an occasional treat; it feels like the perfect moment to indulge.
You enjoy the smooth creaminess as you settle deep into the sofa and get cozy. Your brain connects the sweet satisfaction with calm and relaxation, and now the two are fused. Each evening, you crave a time when the day's chaos ends and you get to let it all go. You've made that moment 'ice cream time'. Each night, the ice cream signals your moment to unwind, and when you try to skip it, it doesn't feel the same. You're not quite as comfortable, and instead of ease, you're busy trying NOT to think about ice cream, which only makes you think about ice cream.
As Judson Brewer describes it in ‘The Hunger Habit’, “Cravings are unpleasant. They are designed that way. That dopamine firing makes our lives miserable until we carry out the desired action. Because we know how cravings feel—uncomfortable—the negative reinforcement process in our brain kicks in. Unpleasant urge? Make it go away. So we prefer to indulge the urge as quickly as possible. The more we do this, the more we learn to do this.” (pg 86).
Changing a habit is generally uncomfortable. It's often more complex than building a habit. Our brain will notice something is missing because that's what it's wired to do. Missing something doesn't have to be a 'bad' thing unless it registers as deprivation. Deprivation bothers us, and it's hard to fight because the internal negotiations wear us down.
WIP Limits
Instead of depriving ourselves, a common approach is to create a scenario that replaces the behavior with something we believe is 'better'. Thus, there's no deprivation. Or we have to chip away at the behavior in little steps to slowly adapt to what's changing without triggering the sense that something is missing. It's a lot of work for our brains, so we tackle things one at a time. It's what a WIP (Work In Progress) limit means. Keeping ourselves focused on one thing at a time is how we get better results. We need to focus on the quality of our work, not the quantity, and yet it's applied in projects because it ultimately leads to better productivity. After all, the things we fix with focus stay fixed.
So, truly, the best way to manage behavior is to be mindful of what we're creating so it doesn't need fixing later. The whole process changes when you decide about that ice cream in advance, skip it, and avoid the potential connection. You can also choose circumstances that allow ice cream in a more manageable pattern. For instance, 'I can have ice cream once a week if I want it, and I will limit it to one average scoop after I finish cleaning up the kitchen.'
Once you set a boundary like that, your brain notices when you go to cross your Rubicon. I'm not saying you never adventure over the line, but it adds a level of mindfulness that has you continually looking at your habits and what you can change.
User stories vs. goals
You may recognize that we're setting a goal, but in projects, goals are framed differently by creating a user story. Since many clients experience goal fatigue, have difficulty creating them or aren't inspired by them, user stories become a reasonable option. Here's how they go:
"As a [user role], I want [some goal] so that [some reason]."
It frames you and your effort positively by naming who you are in the world; it clearly states your intention and why it's important to you. For some people, it can resonate more than a SMART goal because it reminds them of who they want to be and why they're doing this. Sometimes, we need those nudges to keep moving forward.
In the video, you’ll hear about WIP limits and see how different user stories are applied to personal goals. It breaks apart certain aspects of an end result to make smaller, more manageable steps. For instance, you might focus on changing your meals before tackling portion sizes or balance. The intention of the first story might be ‘As someone who cooks at home’, or ‘as someone who values whole, fresh food’, or ‘as someone who eats a variety of whole foods’.