#Middlebury
Insights for Constructive Living
by PAT IANNUZZI
As the saying goes, “We are all creatures of habit.” A habit is a choice of behavior that is repeated regularly and often tends to occur subconsciously. Much of what we do every day is the result of ingrained habits, and they can have a significant influence on our success and happiness.
Most of the time, our habits are good for us. They permit us to carry on essential behaviors such as getting dressed, reading the daily newspaper and eating lunch at a certain time without thinking much about them. Some good habits, like brushing our teeth or tying our shoelaces, have been with us our entire lives so that we are hardly even aware of them. But other habits can be counterproductive or outright harmful. Smoking, a lack of regular exercise and procrastination are classic examples.
From time to time, we can become so aware of the impact of a particular habit, either negative or positive, that we will make a determined commitment to make a change. This is fairly common around this time of year as it is the season of New Year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, however, the desired change most often does not happen. There is a good reason for this: Change is hard, and it requires a lot of effort and resolve. Here are a few generally accepted ideas for generating positive behavioral change.
First, identify the most important habit you need to create or eliminate. This may take some courage because we all have a weakness for rationalizing or otherwise explaining away negative issues about ourselves. We especially tend to minimize the impact our bad habits have on our lives. Choose something that will have a substantial positive impact on your well-being.
Second, it is important to clearly identify the benefit(s) of making the change. List as many as you can, but also focus on the negative aspects of the desired change. You can imagine how great you will feel about yourself if you lost a few pounds, but also take into account the emotional and physiological discomfort you may feel in having to change your eating style. Devote most of your thoughts to the benefits of the anticipated change as they must significantly outweigh the benefits of not changing. Otherwise, the new habit will never materialize.
Third, determine to consciously implement the new behavior consistently for 60 days or so. Give your mind and body time to adjust to your new way of thinking and acting. After all, our current habits didn’t just happen yesterday. They are likely the result of months, years or perhaps a lifetime of mental programming. Psychologists believe that, when we create a new habit, our brain creates new neurological circuits to sustain that habit. This takes time. It is unreasonable, therefore, to think that we can create new patterns of behavior in just a short period.
At the rate of one new habit every 60 days, think how much we could potentially change our habits and our lives in the course of a year.
Pat Iannuzzi of Symbiont Performance Group, Inc. is a performance consultant, trainer and coach focusing on selling, presentation and interpersonal skills. He lives in Litchfield and can be reached at 860-283-9963 or piannuzzi@symbiontnet.com.
