Changing Habits

“The only proper way to eliminate bad habits is to replace them with good ones.” - Jerome Hines

   You may have noticed that the name of this blog has changed slightly. This is because I’m finding myself going in a different direction with the topics I plan to write about. While the main focus of this blog will still focus on interpersonal communication, I’m opening it up a bit to include the just as important self-talk that we all engage in on a regular basis: the ongoing conversations we tend to have with ourselves through our thoughts. I’ve been wanting to bring self-talk officially into the mix, so I’ve decided to pursue it and see where it takes me—or rather, where it takes all of us: myself as well as the readers of this blog. Feel free to leave your feedback in the comments section and let me know what you think.

   So, keeping in the spirit of this blog entry’s theme of change, I’ll now write about some personal habits of mine that I’d really like to change. I’ve recently become much more aware of the habits I’ve developed over the years than I’ve ever been. Just this past week, I had a stark realization that I
have been following patterns of behavior throughout the course of my life that really haven’t helped me move forward in certain respects. This realization hit me a bit hard because I’m very dedicated to developing effective and successful habits when it comes to my field of study and what I do for a living (communication and counseling). However, in terms of maintaining my home (maintenance, cleaning, and all that busywork that keeps the system running), I’ve followed a lifetime habit of storing it away and telling myself, “I’ll do it later”. Sadly, I’ve done it with my blog and other things that mean a lot to me too.

   So I tell myself, “I’ll do it later”. Later. When exactly is “later” anyway? During the past six months of working in post-secondary adult education, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of learning the curriculum that we teach to our incoming students relating to succeeding in college and their future careers. We emphasize positive thought management as a means of being aware of how thinking influences behavior: whatever you tell yourself and think about essentially leads you into your future. So, if you know that you’re capable of doing well, you will ultimately do those things well. It really can be that simple in most cases, but you have to do the work to get there. Issues such as drive, motivation, and desire to succeed play critical roles.

   Going back to the realization I had about my habits: when it comes to my work and other areas of my life, I hold strong beliefs that I am completely capable of success; consequently, I’ve developed habits leaning towards success that help me accomplish what I set out to accomplish. The trouble is that those beliefs don’t seem to stretch into other domains of my existence—the stuff I discussed at the beginning of this entry: regular maintenance of my home and blog—things that are easy to procrastinate with when I work full-time and feel like I don’t have the energy or extra time to devote to them. Obviously, I can’t procrastinate forever—something always gives inside me and I eventually buckle down and do what needs to be done. See, I really am capable whenever I set my mind to something. We all are.

   So, in order to develop effective and successful habits, one must first have a goal in mind that one wants to achieve. In my case, I could say, “I want to devote more attention to my housework and blog”, but there’s already a problem with my goal—it’s not quite specific enough. What does “more” mean? An extra hour or two a week? A day? What? Let’s revise the first sentence of this paragraph: To develop effective and successful habits, one must first have a clear and specific goal in mind that
one wants to achieve. Now, I could say, “I want to devote at least a half hour a day to my housework—doesn’t matter what I do just as long as I clean something that needs to be cleaned—and two to three hours a month (at minimum) to my blog”. There. Now I just need to follow the goals I’ve set down and everything will get done, right? Well, almost…

   Beliefs about one’s self-efficacy are important to be aware of whenever goals are set to change one’s habits. I could have every good intention in the world to change myself; however, if I don’t see myself as a person that devotes regular time and attention to doing so, then all bets are off and I’ll most likely fail in my endeavors. This is part of the reason why many people will set New Year’s resolutions on December 31st or January 1st and forget about them after one or two weeks: because even though they’ve imagined themselves behaving differently, they haven’t yet changed how they actually believe themselves to be on the inside.

   So how does one go about changing self-beliefs? One way of approaching this (and the way I’ll be trying) is through developing affirmations about myself and seeing myself as if I’m already the person I aspire to be. I can say to myself, “I keep a regularly maintained household and blog” and “I used to have problems keeping up with my housework and blog, but I don’t do that anymore”. Sure, it might sound a bit simplistic, but if I say these affirmations to myself everyday and then I don’t follow through, I’ll start to feel like a hypocrite—and I hate hypocrisy! For me, it will feel too odd to talk about myself in a manner that’s blatantly false, so I have to start making my affirmations come true. My behavior will begin to match my beliefs, as it should.

   I suppose a way out of the whole thing would be to stop saying my affirmations or decide to give myself a break whenever I fall back into the habits I’m seeking to change, but that would certainly be
counterproductive. This affirmation system may or may not work well for me, but it’s worth a try. If I begin to believe that I’m the type of person that has the capability to achieve the (clear and specific) goals that I set for myself, then maybe—just maybe—I might actually begin achieving them and changing my habits in the process. It may not end up being an easy thing to do, and it may take a few tries before I get the hang of it, but I’ll let you know how it goes either way. And maybe you’ll once again see me posting fairly regularly each month. ☺