Changing an unwanted habit is hard. If you have a sweet tooth, try removing or even limiting sugar. As a friend once put it, “it will bring you to your knees”.
Other annoying habits are engaging in negative self-talk, biting your nails, overeating, being sedentary, being disorganized, hair pulling, and, well, you fill in the blank.
All unwanted habits have the same construction. Stimulus (unconscious) = reaction (also unconscious).
This can be as simple as deciding to sit down and having no conscious awareness of how you moved from standing to sitting. We saw the chair (stimulus) and plopped down (reaction). The point is not how we may have overtightened some muscles in the process, it is that we were not aware in the first place and could not consciously decide how to get from point A to point B.
And even when we are conscious of what we are doing, we have to respect the strength of our habits. F. M. Alexander wrote compellingly about this in his book “Use of the Self” in the section The golfer who cannot keep his eyes on the ball. A golfer who wishes to improve his game hires a professional to help him. The professional sees the problem and notices that the golfer takes his eyes off the ball and tells him that in order to improve his game, he must keep his eyes on the ball.
But, oh dear. Much as he tries, he still takes his eyes off the ball. Alexander asks, “why does his ‘will to do’ fail him at the critical moment?” The final diagnosis of this failure is that his habitual use is misdirected and not helping him. Oddly, the very habit that he wishes to change is familiar and overbearing at the same time. The urge to repeat it is stronger than the desire to change it.
After many years of F. M. Alexander’s struggles with his own vocal habits (of tensing his larynx and neck muscles), he discovered that the process of pausing before speaking quieted his nervous system and gave him space between his habit and a new way to respond. He succeeded and helped many others to do the same with his hands-on guidance and training programs that exist today as his continued legacy.
Runners, baseball players, actors, and dancers all strive to improve their skills. But without an awareness of what habits are interfering, they can remain ingrained and intractable.
I have spent 20 years helping people to change, not by sheer willpower or discipline, but by learning how to recognize and to respond instead of reacting to harmful habits. Our nervous system can be trained to react less and respond more.
You may need some hands-on assistance with working changing unwanted habits. I offer a free 15-minute phone consultation. 973 432 5815.
Or you can fill out the contact form and I will get back to you within 24 hours.
“People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.”
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