The Power of Habit

There's a popular saying that says, "When you know better, you do better." 

Do you?  I mean, is that always true?

I remember saying to students, "You know better than that" an awful lot.

And it's not just kids.  I'm guessing you have had experiences where you knew a better way, but you kept doing something the way you had always done it.  I have a couple of recent examples.

I have been going to the same YMCA for over two years.  I had been turning on the same street for a long time.  A month ago, I realized that I could avoid an awkward and potentially dangerous intersection if I turned one street earlier and met up with the other street farther west.  I tried it, and it is objectively easier and safer.  Yet, I still find myself sailing right past that street if I am not making a conscious effort to remember. 

When I learned to set up memberships during training for my job, I must have missed a small step on the first screen where other family members are entered on the membership.  I didn't even know it was there as I have been regularly scrolling down to the "Continue to Order Entry" button for 12 months.  That meant going to the order after it was completed and adding a spouse and/or children after the fact.  I thought it was strange, but because I didn't know another way, I assumed it was the only way to do it.  I just thought the system was a little wonky.  A few weeks ago, I saw a co-worker doing it as a step of the set up and said, "Wait, you can do that before you place the order?"  She showed me where it is on the first screen, and I said, "Well, you've just saved me a ton of time."  At some point, that knowledge will save me a ton of time, but it hasn't yet.  I've processed quite a multi-person memberships since then, and I've only used the better way for about half of them.  I usually realize it just after I've hit the button and can't go back and think, "Crud, now I've got to do it the hard way!"

Why? Because the habitual way of doing it has a well-myelinated pathway of neurons (you will sometimes hear it called "muscle memory.")  The new way has some weak connections being made, but I have to do it that way a lot more times before those pathways are stronger.  Until turning the new way becomes automated, I will likely still find myself mindlessly passing the better street and the better button sometimes.

That's the power of habit. We engage in habits so often that we often aren't conscious of the fact that we are doing them.  Smokers who are trying to quit must actively try not to light up at certain times, not because they have a burning desire for a cigarette but because they are in the habit of having one at that time.  If you drive a car with the gear shift in the center console, you will find your hand going there even when driving a rental or borrowing a car from a friend. And, I can't count how many times I have walked into a room and hit the light switch during a power outage.  It's not that I am dumb enough to think the light is going to come on; it is that habit is automated, taking less energy than logic.

Teachers, harness the power of habit.  All over America, the school year has either already started or is soon to start.  Start instilling habits today!  Do the same thing over and over with them on day one. Make "This is how we do this in here" the norm. 

• Walking in and looking at the board for bellwork or announcements should be second nature by next week.
• Capping the marker immediately after writing an answer on their mini-whiteboard should be done without thinking within a day or two.
• You have to overcome their impulse to hop up as soon as the bell rings now, or you will be fighting it for the rest of the year (because that one is already habit, it's gonna take a minute).

Once something becomes a habit, they almost can't help themselves. It's going to feel annoying during the first two weeks, but it will save you all kinds of energy for the rest of the year.  Invest that time. You will be glad you did.

The Power of Habit

As a teacher, my life is made up of routines.  They get interrupted a lot by pep rallies, senior events, class photos, and the like; but every morning, I come in and get the day ready, make a list, and have a class schedule to follow.  At the beginning of each class, I take attendance, run through what we will do for the period, read a scripture, and pray before getting the class going.  Every Monday afternoon, I have a faculty meeting.  Every Tuesday and Friday morning, I have teacher devotions.  Every day, I let early kids in through the door by my room.  My professional life is filled with habitual behaviors.  Because of that, I used to have very few routines and habits in my personal life.

That was true . . . before lockdown.  

During the lockdown, I applied everything I knew about keeping my brain healthy to my day.  Having a consistent schedule was going to matter more than ever.  Keeping the chaos out of my environment was going to be important.  So, I made a few changes in my life.  While many things got dropped as soon as the case numbers fell, there are some that I have continued to do simply out of habit.

I make the bed every day.  That was not normal for me.  Prior to the spring of 2020, my attitude was that a bed that was good enough to get out of was good enough to get back into, and therefore, did not need to be made.  However, knowing I was going to be home 23 hours out of every day and that I was going to have to pass by my bedroom door every time I went to the bathroom, I knew I wouldn't want it to look chaotic, so I started making the bed just as soon as I got up.  I still do.  As soon as I get out of bed, I turn around and make the bed.  About an hour before going to sleep, I go turn it down.  The nighttime part of this routine makes going to bed nicer.  

I do laundry every Sunday.  Prior to the pandemic, I waited to do laundry until I absolutely had to.  I would wait until the choice was to do laundry or go to Walmart to buy underwear.  When we returned to school in masks, it became important to keep this habit so that I would have clean masks for work.  What I found during the pandemic was that doing such small loads made the task so much easier that I no longer dreaded it.  Putting it off had made it so miserable, and I didn't even know I could prevent that.  Even though I don't need to do it for masks anymore, I have continued to wash that week's laundry because I like how fast folding/hanging the clean laundry has become (and I don't lose as many socks because there are so few to match).

I have Tuesday pants.  This one makes me giggle every time I explain it.  When the lockdowns started, I saw people on Facebook talking about how much they were eating, how they only wore pajama pants, and how much weight they were likely to gain.  I don't own a scale, and I don't want to because I don't think it is psychologically healthy; but I needed a way to know what effect the lockdown was having.  To be fair, I wasn't eating junk food.  (If anything, I might have eaten more healthy than I would be on school days because I was at home preparing it.)  However, I was getting less movement during the day than I would have been if I had been walking around my classroom and down the hall to the teachers' lounge.  What I decided was to choose a pair of pants that I would wear one day every week.  If they got a little tight, I would take a few longer walks.  When we returned to school, I just kept doing it.  So, when you see me wearing red pants on a Tuesday, you will know that those are my Tuesday pants.

There are a few more, including walking to the post office when I have something to mail, watching an episode of Stephen Colbert while I eat dinner and a British game show at some point each day, and doing a crossword puzzle every morning.  I didn't make a decision to keep doing these things.  I was simply in the habit of doing them.  If there is a habit you want to adopt, you just have to start doing it.  Because we don't really embrace change, once you get it into your routine, you will keep doing it without having to make yourself.