11 Jun Habits are your worst enemy, but also your greatest friend

“Habits are your worst enemy, but also your greatest friend,” says Marieke Adriaanse, professor of behavior change. Apparently, 40% of everything we do in a day is a habit!

Getting dressed, showering, how and what you eat for breakfast, how you get to work and which route you take, where you sit, who you talk to, and what time you eat dinner are all habits.

Habits as friends or enemies
There are also habits we have a less positive relationship with: fiddling around before you really start, picking up your phone when you’re tired, eating chocolate when it’s in the cupboard, or eating an unhealthy snack every evening. We can judge ourselves harshly for these things, and in doing so, these habits become our enemies.

Changing habits
How can you evolve or change habits? Many studies have been conducted on what works and what doesn’t, which is interesting because almost everyone is engaged with this topic in some way. I listened to a podcast from the Dutch newschannel ‘De Volkskrant’, read the book “Switch” by the Heath brothers, and am taking an online English course full of tricks to encourage you to keep going.

1. Don’t set your goal too high
   “I want to meditate every morning from now on” is too ambitious a goal if you don’t have a routine yet. In fact, you’re very likely to stop after two weeks. A goal of 15 minutes once or twice a week is manageable.
2. Set a timeframe
   It’s better to make your routine depend on how you feel, by setting a specific routine: every Tuesday and Thursday morning, for example.
3. Motivate yourself
   Changing habits works best when you’re truly motivated. Read about it and talk to people who have gone before you.
4. Find allies
   Telling others about your resolution, or even better, doing it together, will boost motivation. Exercise together or meditate in a group.
5. About snacks: Replace an unhealthy or high-calorie snack with a healthy or low-calorie one
   Not snacking at all is much harder. But a bowl of fruit will become a good new habit.
6. Anticipate fatigue
   It’s important to prepare this bowl beforehand. When you’re already tired, you’re more likely to reach for convenience food. Also, make sure you don’t have unhealthy snacks at home.
7. Notice the benefits 
   Do you feel healthier? Lost some weight? Sleep better?
8. Allow yourself an exception 
   Making an exception in exceptional circumstances isn’t grounds for rejection. It’s allowed. Just pick up where you left off the next day.

That last one is important in my opinion. Self-blame seems positive, as it emphasizes what you actually want, but in practice, it’s counterproductive: you criticize yourself and think you’re too weak and need more willpower. Habits, however, are formed more easily through the beforementioned thoughtful approach than through sheer willpower.

Self-acceptance as the foundation for transformation
This theme is also addressed in the workshop on self-image (De Innerlijke Metamorfose in zelfbeeld en emoties). It’s less about changing habits and more about evolving thought and behavior patterns, but aren’t these patterns also habits?

The starting point for change is complete self-acceptance. This removes the pressure to be different. From there, we discover the path to transformation. For example, we explore the pattern of not seeing yourself as good enough and calm the inner critic. If you tend to see things darkly, you learn to live with confidence. If you always expect yourself to be perfect, you learn to allow more flexibility. If you often sacrifice yourself, you also learn to choose yourself, and if you are often strict, you learn how to become more gentle.

*This post has been automatically translated from Dutch