If you would like to change a 'bad' habit, know its benefits first.

 

I had always been nervous when speaking to authorities. I had to change that habit because it was a bad one, and not so beneficial to myself and to the team that I worked with. I wanted to quit being nervous. I reasoned out just like a smoker who is wanting to quit smoking would – what are the harmful effects of my habit of being nervous? In other words, what do I loose when I am nervous? And the list looked something like this: It would not let me articulate what I had to; it would not let authorities notice me for who I am, and it would make me lose out on recognition. So I tried real hard to 'NOT be nervous' only to find that nervousness continued showing up every time I am faced with authority, each time in a different texture.

You could perhaps be on a similar engagement with yourself to change habits, both small and big. If you are like me and most other people, you would have quit working on habits, hoping they change on their own, or expecting some significant event in life could possibly alter your habit once for all, or you could be relying on a particular life stage that would make your habit disappear – after all you are not the same person you were ten years ago, for the good. All of the above stances of yours are valid and most often they do alter you and make you better.

But I am going to propose a three step approach that will empower you and me to alter habits of our choice. This is inspired by research work done by Lahey and Kegan of The Harvard University fame, who published their work in the book titled “Immunity to Change”.

1.       Ask the right question
When it comes to changing habits, it is essential to ask the right question. Ask what the benefits are, and not what loses or ill effects are! What are the benefits of smoking? The fundamental premise is that we as people will not engage in any behavior if there is no significant benefit in it for us, though often the benefit is unconscious.  So when I asked the question ‘what are the benefits of being nervous when speaking to authorities’, to my surprise I had a list of answers as follows: felt good and right about upholding my value of respect to authorities; I felt comfortable in acknowledging that authorities are more competent than I am; my nervousness pleased them and I felt secured in pleasing them; and that I let them make final decisions which enabled me to be free of responsibility, and so on. And I realized I had more benefits from being nervous than loses! A smoker most often enjoys benefits of being socially connected and related. Why would he want to let go smoking? Makes sense, right?

 2.       Validate your fundamental assumptions 
Now that we know the benefits of our habits, and hence are no more surprised by the grip they have on us, we should move further to explore the fundamental assumptions we hold on our perceived benefits. One of the strong assumptions that I held was that ‘I respect authorities when I am nervous’! Well, that does not sound valid, does it? Hence when I worked on my assumption by reasoning that it's not the only way of being respectful, I suddenly found myself staring at many alternatives to being respectful to authorities - by paying attention, by acknowledging, by responding promptly to requests, and by many more ways. Interestingly nervousness lost its stronghold and appeal, in the context of what I really wanted to express through it – respect.
 
3.      Replace, and don’t change
Now that I have alternatives, I just had to replace my behaviour of being nervous with a behavior that has better benefits to myself and to others in the presence of my authorities. You notice that I did not try to change ‘being nervous’ rather, I only replaced it. And nervousness remains as one of my options always, even today. But that does not matter because science of evolution suggests, that which is not in use, would eventually disappear, and that which is used consistently gets strengthened! And to use, not to use, and what to use is my choice. I am empowered.

So we will never change – we will continue to be human beings, and we should only look at moving on, moving forward, and transform in ways that is beneficial to contexts of our work and life. Trying to change is frustrating, but transforming is empowering.

We (at Bisykle) collaborate and work with teams and individuals to surface the benefits and fundamental assumptions behind their habits, that influences efficiency and effectiveness to deliver results.