How do you habit? Thoughts on how to make good habits happen

Do you know how you habit? What your good habit tendency is?

I have been thinking about habit and routine a lot recently. Predominantly because for a few months, I seemed utterly incapable of sticking to a routine or any of the habits I WANTED to keep or start.

To be able to change a habit or to start a new good habit, understanding our habit behaviours is very helpful.

Part of me doesn’t want to write this. I want you all to think of me as a perfect habit-performing machine who wakes up at the same time every day, performs their morning routine, writes in the morning and ticks everything off their to-do list. Well, that is not me. And it makes me feel better to think it is not anyone else EVERY DAY either. Although, from recent research, I do know some people are much better at implementing and sticking to habits and routines than others.

I have a habit thought pattern of comparing myself to my own previous good behaviours. Holding up Laurie of a few years ago as an example of what I should be doing now. This is not useful. It is useful to look back and be able to congratulate myself on the positive changes I have made over the last few years. This can be a helpful trait for anyone to develop, keeping a log of previous successes can help combat low-confidence and imposter syndrome. For me stopping drinking, starting budgeting and saving money rather than spending it all on Reiss clothes and managing to care a smidge less what other people think are all on my “success list” for when I need a confidence boost. But, alas, they are not where my mind goes. What I have noticed I have a tendency to do is look back on what I perceive to be previous good behaviours, and berate myself for not having those anymore.

But, as we all know deep down, life changes. Circumstances change.

And so, our habits, behaviours and routines naturally shift. This has become even more evident throughout the pandemic when routines that used to keep us sure and in line has largely been removed.

In London, I had a corporate job. I needed to be in the office from 9am-6pm minimum every day. Often, when I wasn’t depressed and couldn’t get out of bed until the last minute, I would aim to be in the office by about 8.15am so that I could do some “creative” thinking before everyone came in and I got bombarded with chat and emails and meetings. This might be early or late for you, but this is my blog and my reality.

Add in my commute time – 30 minutes each way – and I was committed to work-related activities for at least 10 hours and 45 minutes a day. This meant I did not have much time to do anything else if I wasn’t disciplined, and at the time there was a lot of other stuff I wanted to do. As well as work, in a week I wanted to fit in writing for my blog (a project I launched in December 2016 in tandem with my sobriety day one), going to yoga, riding my bike, run, date, see my friends, and sleep. Writing that down, it’s quite obvious I did not have children or a significant other (still don’t FYI). My priorities now are also different to back then, but I am painting you a picture.

My days tended to work like this:

5.30am – wake up

Cycle to yoga class

6.30 am – yoga class

Cycle to office

Shower, get coffee & be sat with breakfast at my desk by about 8.15

Work

Lunchtime – go to café and write for the blog, on rainy days I got the bus to work instead and wrote on the bus journey

Work

After work – see friends, go for a run or go on a date

In those days, I had a level of commitment to my habits that I have failed to ever find again.

And, in honesty, reading my previous schedule makes me feel exhausted. There’s no way my nervous system and increased-anxiety could hack that version of life right now. I suppose that’s my first point. There is no point me comparing myself to that version of Laurie, because I have changed, life has changed AND we are in the middle of a bloody pandemic.

Without a commute, and that full-on full-time job. I also no longer need to be that disciplined to squeeze everything in (right now – thanks pandemic-induced work shedding). What this has meant, in truth, is I don’t even get the things I want to do done quite a lot of the time.

And so, over breakfast with my friend the other day, I was lamenting this dilemma …

Feeling quite sorry for myself for this first world problem: WHY can’t I stick to my habits like I used too? Why do I find it much easier to stick to commitments I have made for other people, than those I make to myself? (If I am your coach, I will show up for you without fail. I will read around what’s going on for you. I will look up studies. I will think of new solutions and new ways of helping you find clarity on what you want and how to get there. If you ask me to write 1500 words of sales copy on waterproofing by tomorrow, you can bet it will be done by tomorrow. But, if I tell myself I am going to go for a run in the morning, it’s about a 50:50 chance I’ll do it).

“Ahh,” my friend said. “I hear you. I’m finding it hard to stick to a routine too. But for different reasons”. She felt like because work was feeling relatively hard to come by right now, she should be putting her all into work and that taking time to do things for her was a frivolous waste of time. A whole different conversation for another day.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I recently picked this book up from the book swap on habits, I’ll lend it to you”.

Side note: English books are hard to come by in Cambodia and so I read almost everything on my Kindle. A device I was vehemently opposed to in favour of real paper books until I was faced with the book shortage – and the ones you can find are typically $25+ too. This means my reading habits are influenced by what I see recommended by friends, mentioned on podcasts, by people I follow on Instagram, and the Amazon algorithm which tells me what I’ll like based on what I have read before. It means I miss gems like this book which was published in 2015 and has been the most helpful read on habits I have found (yes, I preferred it to the much-recommended Atomic Habits which I have also re-read recently), Gretchen Rubin – Better than Before.

Gretchen has identified Four Habit Tendencies to help us understand our habit personalities. I think it is likely your habit tendency can shift depending on where you are at in your life, mine definitely has since the London-life I described above. More on that later.

In the book she explains, ‘in life we face two kinds of expectations: outer expectations (meet work deadlines, observe traffic regulations) and inner expectations (stop napping, keep a New Year’s resolutions).’

She goes on to say ‘our tendency colours the way we see the world and therefore has enormous consequences on our habits’ 

Just about everyone falls into one of the Four Tendencies:

Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations

Upholders wake up and think: “What’s on the schedule and the to-do list for today?” They want to know what is expected of them, and to meet those expectations. They avoid making mistakes or letting people down – including themselves.

Questioners question all expectations and will meet an expectation only if they believe it is justified and makes sense

Questioners are motivated by reason, logic and fairness. They wake up and think, “what needs to be done today, and why?” They decide for themselves whether a course or vacation is a good idea, and they resist doing anything that seems to lack purpose.

Obligers respond readily to outer expectations but struggle to meet inner expectations

Obligers are motivated by external accountability; they wake up and think “what must I do today?” Because Obligers excel at meeting external demands and responsibilities, they go to great lengths to meet their responsibilities, making terrific colleagues and friends. L’s note: this can slide into people-pleasing …

Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner alike

Rebels choose to act from a sense of choice and freedom. They wake up and think “What do I want to do today?” They resist control, even self-control and enjoy floating rules and expectations.

Which habit tendency do you identify with most?

Looking at these, and reading about them in more depth in Gretchen’s book, I see that I am an Obliger. Back in London, I think I was more likely a questioner. I knew what I wanted to do and why, so I got it done.

If knowledge is power, then self-knowledge can be your superpower.

The better we know ourselves, the more effective and happier we can be as humans.

It is my belief that prioritising self-enquiry and gaining self-knowledge has a double-pronged result:

1. It helps us to gain confidence in ourselves.

We know ourselves; we know more about why we do things and we gain an understanding of ourselves. Typically, in doing this work, we also gain an understanding of others and how they do things – whether this is similar or different to us – adding an extra layer to our confidence in knowing that we are less alone.

2. It helps us to change and adapt our behaviour in positive ways.

If you identify your tendencies, and how you think, it is easier to change. Rather than taking generic advice, you can adapt the advice to work for you – or disregard it completely. If you are a rebel, you likely won’t take the advice. You need to decide what is right for you.

As a self-identified obliger, I now accept that I find it difficult to self-motivate. And rather than giving myself a hard time for this (work in progress), I have begun to implement external accountability where I can to help me stick to my habits. Me and my friend now text our word count to each other at the end of the day, I tell my brother (house-mate) what time I will be up in the morning and deal with his judgement if I sleep in. Small things. But this quest to understand how I habit, and getting to know myself better has made all the difference.

As I mentioned above, sometimes we can change our tendencies too. One of my friends wrote her first thesis by committing to send another friend so many words a week, now they can write a whole paper without any deadlines as they question the writing process and know how it feels. Upholder turned questioner.

None of these tendencies are good or bad though.

There is no one tendency that is better than the other. They just are. Like us as humans. We just are.

If we can remove our self-judgement from our self-inquiry and self-knowledge work than it becomes even more powerful.

Where are you at with your habits? Going strong? Are there new ones you want to cultivate? Or old helpful ones that have slipped? Take an honest appraisal of your situation, figure out what you can add or re-cultivate to improve your life experience and – as Lao Tzu says – have the courage to begin again. Have the courage to restart, begin new habits or reconfirm you are exactly where you want to be if your habits are already consistent.

Today is a new day. And you are worthy of the best, possible life experience.

I appreciate you.

Thanks for reading, Laurie xxx

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