Breaking Bad Habits and Forming New Ones: Steven Bartlett
As we welcome 2023, many of us form new years resolutions which can take the form of new habits. Did you know though that most people who form resolutions give them up within a month. In fact according to a recent American study only 9% of the 41% of Americans who set resolutions were successful in achieving it.
We started the year (like we start every week) with Steven Bartletts ‘Diary Of A CEO’ Podcast. This episode looked at 5 Scientific Rules For Making & Breaking Habits in 2023.
We urge you to listen to the full episode which delves into the research around resolutions and changing behaviours.
These are our top takeaways:
You must continue to reward your brain through the habit changing process. We are intrinsically wired to go back to our original habit as they are never forgotten. Steven talks about his father smoking in the car and how their car journeys would go hand in hand with reaching into the side pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up. After reading about habit changing, his father replaced the cigarettes in the packet with lollipops. This in turn meant the habit was the same while being replaced with something new.
Re-wiring your neurological pathways through repetition. Habits take practice to form and therefore the same is true to break them. The first time you engage in a new rewarding behaviour you get a hit of Dopamine (the happy hormone). This makes you want to do it again and therefore the reason we start to form new habits. Sugar, coffee, technology and processed food gives you an initial Dopamine hit which is why we continue to go back to them. Our brain is not equipped to deal with these big rushes.
If you are looking to ditch the 5pm wine, don’t remove it, replace it. Steven goes on to talk about when we look to remove something from our lives, we are more likely to overindulge in it. This is why it is so important to replace this ‘thing’ with something else to reward our brain. The way to remove the 5pm glass of wine is in fact to replace it with something else such as cold water with lemon, sparkling waters or in our opinion an alcohol-free glass of wine or cocktail so you have the same ritual and glass forming new habits.