47. How to REALLY Change a Habit
Episode 47
If changing our habits were easy, we’d all have checkmarks next to all of our goals. In fact, if changing our habits were easy, our entire lives would be pretty easy too.
The reality? Changing our habits is hard work, despite the loud voices in the self-improvement industry claiming that some new habit-hack is the answer you’ve been looking for.
In this episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast, I share the ONE thing that has to be in place before it’s possible to change a habit.
🎙️Other Episodes + Resources Mentioned
Episode 41 → 100 Organization Tips (1-50): Part 1
Episode 42 → 100 Organization Tips (51-100): Part 2
✏️ FREE DOWNLOADS:
-
The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them 😉
47 How to Really Change a Habit===
[00:00:00] Hello, welcome back to another episode of learn and work smarter. Today's episode is a little bit different from our usual how to episodes. For starters, you can tell it's a bit shorter than our typical show here. And also we are talking about something so powerfully related to our mindset. In fact, it is our mindset.
We're diving into something that impacts all of us, which is our stories.
These are the little narratives that we tell ourselves about who we are, why we do what we do and where we think we're destined to end up. Our stories can be powerful and motivating or they can hold us back and keep us stuck. And if we want. To change a habit or anything related to our default mode of operation, whether in school, at work or in life, it often starts with changing our stories.
Trust me, this is not a woo woo episode.
There is nothing woo about mindset. All right, but let me [00:01:00] start by answering a question that you might have at this point already. What are stories and why do they matter?
So everybody has stories about themselves. We have stories that explain why we're in our current situation, why we behave a certain way and why. We are good or bad at certain things. Stories give us context and meaning in our lives.
And they also make us human. In a nutshell, our story is our reason for thinking and acting a certain way.
Now the reverse is also true. We tend to engage in activities and habits that align with our stories. This can be amazing and healthy and mobilizing, unless our stories are not quite right. If our stories are not quite right, I'll talk about what that means in a minute, then neither are our activities, our actions, our habits, our perspectives.
And that my friend is not amazing, healthy or [00:02:00] mobilizing.
So, if you are here to learn a mindset tidbit, I mean, it's much bigger than a tidbit if I'm being honest, that is essential for any habit change, that is essential to learning and working smarter, then you are in the right place.Now, whether you are a student trying to keep up with assignments and schoolwork, or maybe a professional, trying to get organized or just work more productively, your story can either help you or hurt you.
Let's look at how this works with a couple of different characters. All right? And maybe you're going to see yourself in [00:03:00] one of them.
Take Dave, for example. Dave is a full-time- I made up Dave's name, okay, but his story is a classic one- Dave is a full-time working professional has always described himself as disorganized. That is his story. All right. So when he forgets something important, when he gets lost in his email, or maybe he misses a deadline, He shrugs it off “well, I'm just disorganized. Ok it's who I am.”
Right, but hold up a second, Dave. Okay. Are you clinically disorganized? Is that a thing? Probably not. Hold up, we'll talk about ADHD in a minute. Dave's story is a convenient excuse for not learning organization skills. It is a narrative that keeps him comfortable in his current habits.
Now, even if Dave has ADHD and struggles with executive functioning, declaring himself now and forever as disorganized is painting himself [00:04:00] into a corner and robbing himself of any potential opportunity to even envision himself learning the skills and the supports that someone with ADHD requires in order to achieve a functional level of organization.
Repeating the story that I'm just a disorganized person also has a psychologically soothing effect.
This is bad. I'll explain. It reduces- so that story reduces Dave's cognitive dissonance. Now in psychology, cognitive dissonance is the very uncomfortable state where one's actions don't align with their beliefs and their values. And this mental tension is so strong that we create excuses and rationalizations for our behavior in order to relieve that discomfort. We all do this.
It doesn't make us bad people. We all do it.
For example, let's say that you know exercise is [00:05:00] important and you want to be strong and healthy for your family, but you are finding yourself skipping the gym day after day. What do we do in this situation? We come up with a million reasons why we just had to skip the gym all week.
Maybe on Monday, this thing came up. On Tuesday you were so tired, right? On Wednesday, yada yada, yada. We change our story to justify our behavior. That's actually, that's easier than changing our behavior right? And that's because the cognitive dissonance is so icky, it's so tense that we need to do something, and as I said, changing our story, finding excuses and rationalizing is easier than just going to the gym.
Okay, but what happens over time? What happens when we keep rationalizing our behavior. Well, then we become these stories.
We believe them. All right. And now our story is, yeah. You know, I tried the gym and it just didn't work for me.
So here's the plot twist, Dave. Try and telling yourself a different [00:06:00] story. Try “I'm an organized person who just hasn't practiced the skills enough.” Right? Rewrite the story and then go act on it by learning a few organizational strategies and putting them into place, you know, I've got you covered with some of those in my 100 organization, tips for school and work series. That is episode 41 and 42.
Now will Dave naturally default to his, I'm not an organized person story for some time?
Yup. He absolutely will. Totally normal. But the work is to say, whoa, hold up, Dave. Dave talking to himself. I'm doing it again. No, no, no. I am an organized person. Alright, we've got to catch ourselves. But remember cognitive dissonance is a natural part of being human, and we can use this to our advantage.
Dave will always want to reduce psychological tension.
And so he will do everything possible to make sure that his actions and his thoughts align. So if Dave [00:07:00] changes his story to, I am an organized person who just hasn't learned the skills yet, and day after day, he continues to engage in the habits of a dis organized person, he's going to begin to feel that cognitive dissonance, that psychological tension. But if Dave perseveres, if he sticks to that story that he's committed to the good story.
All right. He will need to change his behavior in order to get psychological relief.
In a way, every action that Dave takes to become an organized person provides that psychological relief. Okay.
Again, this is not woo. This works. It works when Dave commits to the idea that he's an organized person. So he starts thinking like an organized person. He starts looking at his task management system and saying things like, ah, I don't actually have one. An organized person would have one and I am an organized person.
So he starts researching how to track and organize his tasks.
He [00:08:00] obviously gets inside SchoolHabits University of course. And over time, Dave becomes an organized person.
Now let's look at Anna, who's always struggled with math. Her story: I'm just not good at math and I never will be. I'm not a math person. All right. This story is so strong that every time Anna falls behind or fails a test or doesn't understand a math concept, she interprets it as more evidence that she is not a math person.
But Anna Sweet Anna, are you certain that you're just inherently bad at math? I get it.
Yeah, maybe it is not your favorite subject. You are allowed to have a least favorite subject. Now of course, disclaimer, I am excluding legitimate math disabilities and dyscalculia here, but if Anna keeps telling herself that story, she is sealing in her feet. Her story has convinced her that math will always be a struggle, which prevents her from ever thinking about finding ways to improve. It is accepting defeat in [00:09:00] something that's not even a competition.
So here's what I tell Ana: you're not bad at math. You're just holding onto a story that stopping you from ever seeing yourself differently. Rewrite that story Anna. Instead of I'm bad at math, you say, Hey, my last few tests have been meh, but I'm a good student and I know how to study and I know how to get help.
Then go get some help.
A student who believes it's impossible to ever get good at math. We'll never even look for ways to do so.
So let's take some of these examples and turn them to you. I think of a habit that you've been struggling with, maybe it is procrastination, maybe you know, feeling like you're just not organized enough for the job.
Does that sound familiar? Say that you've always considered yourself a slow worker or someone who just struggles to keep up. Just like Dave or Anna, you might be telling yourself a story that has become an easy excuse rather than a true limitation.
Rewrite your story. You are not a [00:10:00] slow worker. You're someone learning to work more efficiently. You're not bad at time management. You're just someone building the skills for it.
At the end of the day, if we want to change our habits, it starts with the stories we tell ourselves. Instead of sticking with the same old lines, try a rewrite, tell yourself you're someone who can adapt, who can improve, who has control over the next chapter. Because here's the secret: you're the protagonist of this story.
You can take the plot anywhere you want.
That's it. Shortish and Swedish. Thank you, Swedish? No. Shortish and sweet. Thanks for tuning into today's episode. I think I actually have Swedish blood, so maybe there is shortish in Swedish here. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast.
If you enjoyed this, please consider leaving a review or sharing it with someone who could use a plot twist in their own story. And as always. Never stop learning. [00:11:00]
