How to change your habits without changing a thing

Unless you are a superhero, it’s likely that you may have some habits that you would like to change or see the back of entirely. It could be anything; drinking too much coffee, the occasional evening glass of wine that seems to be growing in number or like a lot of us, five minutes that turns into an hour on your phone deep in a social media vortex....

Unless you are a superhero, it’s likely that you may have some habits that you would like to change or see the back of entirely. It could be anything; drinking too much coffee, the occasional evening glass of wine that seems to be growing in number or like a lot of us, five minutes that turns into an hour on your phone deep in a social media vortex. Perhaps you have habits that you want to implement – you keep meaning to start running again, start saving or reading more but somehow can’t seem to find the time or see where you’re going wrong.

I have been there. There have been so many habits that I have wanted to change over the years; eating more healthily, start a manageable workout routine, spend my time more mindfully, save more money – the list is honestly endless. But this one simple technique really ended up helping me to reflect on my behaviours and got me to be really honest with myself about where I was holding myself back. And now I would like to share it with you!

The strategy of self monitoring has been used for decades by psychologists to help effect powerful and meaningful physical or emotional change in their patients. It requires little effort for the results that it can give you and it doesn’t require you to make any conscious change – too easy, right?!

So let me tell you how to get started.

First, you need to decide where you want to make changes. Perhaps its something really specific like you want to save €10,000 or maybe it is more generalised – you want to get healthier. But you do need to know where to focus your attention. Now all it takes is paying said attention to your current reality. That is it.

So, what do I mean by pay attention? Now, if you are anything like me, you may have tried to lose weight over the course of your life. What is one of the things that you are advised to do? Start a food diary. Food diaries may seem like a pointless exercise but studies have proven their value over and over again if your end goal is weight loss. This process is not much different; you are simply going to be monitoring what your day to day life in regard to your chosen behaviour looks like at the moment. Over the course of a week, try to record the habit and how you felt before, during or after engaging in it. You can use your phone, a computer or a journal but I would recommend writing your observations down rather than recording them verbally as the process of writing makes this exercise more impactful.

Try and be as accurate as possible – if you want to drink more water and less soda, be realistic with how much water and soda you are currently drinking and when. Studies have shown that we humans often over estimate to show ourselves in a more positive light; one study showed that people over estimated by DOUBLE how much they thought that they were walking in a day. And let’s face it, you don’t want false positives here – you want real change!

The next step is to reflect back on your day or at the end of the week. As you are recording your behaviours, you are probably already starting to see the benefits of this exercise but this is when you can really see how you engage in your habit. It allows you to see where there may be discrepancies between what you thought you were doing and what you actually are doing. It can also help you to see where you might be holding yourself back or where you could carve out extra time for the things that you would rather be doing.

Observing, monitoring and then reflecting back on our behaviours helps our brains to create lasting subconscious change. When you are monitoring yourself and your habits, your brain becomes tricked into thinking that you are being watched by someone else, which then in turn makes you want to act on your ‘best behaviour.’ When we feel trapped by a habit, it can sometimes make us feel powerless and like we have no control over it. Monitoring helps us to realise responsibility for our own actions, which on a deeper level gives us back the control over our behaviours, and in turn our subconscious makes choices to get the desired result.

Finally, monitoring allows us to recognise any triggers that we may have previously been unaware of. I found myself using my phone way more than I was happy with so used this technique. Firstly, I just monitored my screen time using the screen time app (oh the irony) and I was shocked, the ten minutes here and there were actually more like half an hour and some days my screen time was over ten hours! Okay, I listen to a lot of podcasts and music, but even so I was shocked at how much time I had spent on Social Media mindlessly scrolling. Once I paired this with monitoring, I noticed that a lot of the time I picked up my phone for a ‘quick scroll’ was when I was feeling a higher level of stress or anxiety. I was basically numbing my icky emotions through distraction. Now, if I feel myself reaching for my phone subconsciously, it prompts me to ask myself if I actually need to take a breather, have a stretch or spend a few minutes outside. It helped me to think before acting and took away that feeling of ‘coming to’ after being in a scrolling coma.

Being confronted with your own reality can have a really impactful change on a deeply subconscious level, helping to give you freedom from your habits and allows you to empower yourself without you having to intentionally change a single thing!

I would love to hear about whether you give the Strategy of Monitoring a try and how you get on.

Let’s Rise and Shine,

Laura