Psychology of a habit
- The trigger: Your alarm goes off and that starts the morning coffee/tea sequence in your brain. Your ‘cup of tea’ trigger could also be a person, a time of day, an emotional state, or any number of things.
- The behavior: You walk out of bed and sip your coffee/tea prepared by your house maid. Thanks to her who makes bad habits even easier to continue with.
- The reward: You feel the effects of the invigorating caffeine and the pleasurable dopamine released by your brain and tell yourself, Hey, do this again because I feel energetic and refreshed. If I do not drink tea early morning I get headache so this habit of having tea/coffee is great to feel better.
This is a never ending loop. Habits, in fact, are much like addictions. So breaking habit loops usually have headways and relapses, just as is true for kicking addictions like drugs, smoking, alcohol, junk food.
Changing bad habits is difficult and a constant struggle because our subconscious brain pushes us towards comfort and wants to save energy. Our brain does not want to do things that are good for us because it requires conscious effort. It requires will power which is not easy on brain. Our brain by default would seek comfort, avoid risks, avoid changes in our lives, our brain shows resistance to good habits even though they are beneficial for us in long run.
Our brains naturally enjoy the short term instant gratifications which are generally a result of bad decisions. Our brains tend to stop us from inculcating good habits which have long term benefits, having everlasting gratification because it is hard and consumes a lot of mental energy resources.
So we need Discipline and commitment to to stick to a a good lifestyle. Good habits and doing right things that are in our best interests is not easy. It is true with health, fitness, good eating habits, a balanced lifestyle, managing finances and relationships and pursuing our passion. Of course it is hard to choose the right things and take right decisions most of the times. If it were easy all of us would be flaunting a 6 pack and would be millionaires. But this is not the case because it needs consistency and commitment in terms of effort, time, adjustments, compromises and sacrifices to be great in something.
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References:
Some Excerpts taken from various articles written by experts