How to Establish New Habits the No-Sweat Way

   “The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” - Samuel Johnson

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen.

Have you ever had problems establishing a new habit? Maybe I should ask, have you ever not had problems establishing a new habit? Whether it’s getting up early, going for a daily run, losing weight, writing a journal – let’s face it: most attempts to establish a new habit end in a dismal¹ flop².

In her book “This year I will…”, Andy Ryan, an expert in collaborative thinking, spells out why change is difficult:

    Whenever we initiate³ change, even a positive one, we activate⁴ fear in our emotional brain….If the fear is big enough, the fight-or-flight response will go off and we’ll run from what we’re trying to do.

That’s exactly how it is for me. One part of me is gung-ho about making changes, and the other part just turns tail and rushes off in the opposite direction!

Let’s take a look at how we can affect change without giving ourselves a fright. Or do we just have to accept that we are creatures of habit and nothing much will ever change?

In a New York Times article based upon the research by Andy Ryan it says:

    Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

    But don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately⁵ ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.

How do we create pathways of change so gently that we don’t take fright?

There is a very interesting Japanese philosophy called Kaizen which can help us do just that. Kaizen focuses on continuous but small change.

In order to find out how Kaizen can help us to establish new habits, let’s take a look at change in terms of momentum⁶. Just imagine for a moment that you are the captain of an ocean liner. If you decided⁷ to change course 90 degrees, there would be two different ways to accomplish this. One way would be to stall the ship’s forward momentum and then take up a new course.

Big changes mean that momentum is lost.

The other way to change course would be to use the forward momentum and to incrementally⁹ change course until the full 90 degrees are accomplished¹⁰.

If we change direction little by little, we can use momentum to affect change.

Andy Ryan says:

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    The small steps in Kaizen don’t set off fight or flight, but rather keep us in the thinking brain, where we have access to our creativity and playfulness.

With a strategy of continuous low-level change, we are able to sidestep the number one barrier to change: fear.

Let’s see how this would work in our daily life. Let’s imagine that you want to get up an hour earlier each morning in order to be more productive.

Strategy No. 1: You grit¹¹ your teeth, set your clock an hour earlier, and struggle out of bed. This might work for a few days, or for longer if you’re disciplined. But chances are that you’ll be back in your old groove¹² as soon as you begin to feel tired and stressed.

Strategy No. 2: You use the Kaizen method and get up one minute earlier each day. Two months later you would be getting out of bed one hour earlier – without even noticing the change!

You can see by this example what a powerful strategy for change Kaizen is.

The Kaizen method of continuous incremental⁸ improvements isn’t just a personal philosophy. It was embraced by industry giants such as Toyota and has enabled them to become world leaders in automotive innovation.

The word that leaps out at me when I read about the principles of Kaizen is ‘continuous’. I don’t know how it is for you, but in my life personal growth happens in bursts - with longish pauses in between.

This is rather like doing a massive run or a superhard yoga class one day—and then letting all exercise slip for the next days because your body feels sore. A few days later you feel the need for a hefty dose of exercise again – and that brings you back to the massive run or the superhard yoga class. And so it goes on and on…

What if we we kept our exercise routine going each day and very gradually increased the length or difficulty of training? What if we used this gentle but powerful way to effect all change in our life?

What’s your sense of how the Kaizen method would work for habits that you want to establish?

1 dismal   

adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的

参考例句：

• That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
• My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。

2 flop   

n.失败(者)，扑通一声；vi.笨重地行动，沉重地落下

参考例句：

• The fish gave a flop and landed back in the water.鱼扑通一声又跳回水里。
• The marketing campaign was a flop.The product didn't sell.市场宣传彻底失败，产品卖不出去。

3 initiate   

vt.开始，创始，发动；启蒙，使入门；引入

参考例句：

• A language teacher should initiate pupils into the elements of grammar.语言老师应该把基本语法教给学生。
• They wanted to initiate a discussion on economics.他们想启动一次经济学讨论。

4 activate   

vt.使活动起来，使开始起作用

参考例句：

• We must activate the youth to study.我们要激励青年去学习。
• These push buttons can activate the elevator.这些按钮能启动电梯。

5 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

6 momentum   

n.动力，冲力，势头；动量

参考例句：

• We exploit the energy and momentum conservation laws in this way.我们就是这样利用能量和动量守恒定律的。
• The law of momentum conservation could supplant Newton's third law.动量守恒定律可以取代牛顿第三定律。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 incremental   

adj.增加的

参考例句：

• For logic devices, the incremental current gain is very important. 对于逻辑器件来说，提高电流增益是非常重要的。 来自辞典例句
• By using an incremental approach, the problems involving material or geometric nonlinearity have been solved. 借应用一种增量方法，已经解决了包括材料的或几何的非线性问题。 来自辞典例句

9 incrementally   

adv.逐渐地

参考例句：

• Incrementally update the shared dimensions used in this cube. 增量更新此多维数据集中使用的共享维度。 来自互联网
• Grand goals are inspiring, but be sure to approach them incrementally. 辉煌的目标令人鼓舞，但一定要逐步实现。 来自互联网

10 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

11 grit   

n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关

参考例句：

• The soldiers showed that they had plenty of grit. 士兵们表现得很有勇气。
• I've got some grit in my shoe.我的鞋子里弄进了一些砂子。

12 groove   

n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯

参考例句：

• They're happy to stay in the same old groove.他们乐于墨守成规。
• The cupboard door slides open along the groove.食橱门沿槽移开。