2 whole weeks of journaling every day! Today, I want to think about how we can transform the habits that we want to change into habits that serve us better. As a brief summary for anyone who missed yesterday, I was introduced to the idea of habits being made up of cues, behaviors, and rewards through Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit. Cue triggers the behavior and most often falls into one of these five categories: Location, Time, Emotional State, Other People, and Immediately preceding action. Routine/Behavior is the good or bad habit we are trying to identify. Reward is the reason we keep coming back to this habit. Like yesterday, I recommend breaking up today’s journaling into a few different sections. (1) For the first five minutes, make a list of all of the habits you would like to change. Don't censor yourself as you write this list. (2) Once you have your habit list, for the next 5 minutes, try to find the cue and reward for each of the behaviors you listed. If you did the first section for a full five minutes, you likely have more habits listed than you have time for when you are trying to identify cues and rewards, so if you get stuck, skip that habit and go back to it if you have more time at the end. It will be tempting as we look at habits today to look at negative ones, for example, not sleeping enough, not exercising enough, not eating healthy. I recommend either skipping those or trying to rephrase them as the behavior you actually do and want to change. Instead of not sleeping enough, try staying up late to play video games. (3) For your final five minutes, look at each set of three and try to find a different behavior that matches the cue and reward. Take 5-15 minutes and write about What are your bad habits? List at least 3 and identify the cue that triggers the habit, the behavior, and the reward you get. What behaviors can you do instead that match the same cue and reward? I hope today’s journaling exercise will give you some clarity about the behaviors in your life that no longer serve you and make you feel empowered to replace them with new habits that better match your goals. #timetosoar24 If you'd like to get these prompts directly to your email inbox and read my reflections, you can find them at https://allthejoyfulthings.beehiiv.com/

Posted by laurawaltje at 2024-01-14 22:41:25 UTC