What do over-eating, being a worry-wort, and answering emails all day have in common?
Here’s a hint – none of them are helping you do a better job at work.
Here’s another hint – habit loop.
This month, I bumped into Dr. Judson Brewer on the internet… basically on the Ezra Klein podcast. He’s got a book out called Unwinding Anxiety and he’s got a couple of mindfulness apps out. Because I love all things related to how our minds work, I checked out his book and his Eat Right Now app. I’m enjoying the book and the app is really well done, highly recommended. You can find all of this at DrJud.com
I’ve talked before in this blog about making sure you are giving your habits nice long tails…. or rewards. Check out the 30 Lessons tab, Lesson 12.
What Dr. Brewer brings to the game is a simple model that we can work with to map out habitual patterns quickly.
OK, so far, you’re probably not impressed. In a basic sense, we all know this model.
I see cake, I eat cake, I feel good in the short term. Next time I see cake, I’ll eat it again.
Here’s where I got hooked. Things like anxiety and worry can also be … habits.
What?
My kid is out late, I worry, I feel more in control. Next time my kid has the car keys and it’s after ten p.m., I’ll worry.
Boom.
For me, this idea was like having a shortcut to happy land.
You mean, we don’t have to find our inner child and talk to him for seven years to reduce our anxiety?
You got it.
If behaviors like rumination, anxiety, and worry can be tackled like other bad habits, we’re in new territory. So I bought the book, tried the app, loved the model.
Here’s how it goes: Big project (cue) answer emails (behavior) feel productive (reward).
That’s a habit loop that will make your life at work miserable pretty darn quick. But big projects are overwhelming and stressful and emails give us a hit of dopamine. So how can you break this cycle?
Once you’ve documented the habit loop, you can work with it. Yes, you have to write the model down. Why? Because writing things like this down objectifies them.
Now you can get curious about it – you do that by honing in on the results. You just answered seven emails and lost that hour you had set aside to work on your project. You felt productive, but were you really? Did the worry actually keep your kid safer? Did the half a pizza really make you feel better?
Part of making the connections immediate rather than intellectual is checking in with your body.
You just answered seven emails. You got the dopamine, but tell us how you really feel? Is there still a knot of anxiety in your gut?
Checking in with yourself at a physical level is key to breaking out of your habitual thoughts and really getting to the truth of your results.
You can then correct your model. Big Project (cue) answer emails (behavior) have even less time to work on it, feel sick to my stomach, have tense shoulders (result).
You can’t un-know something like that once you actually feel how losing that hour affects you physically.
You’ve taken the first step to re-writing the if-then statements that drive your life.
And that? Is just a good way to start.