On a daily basis, our brain has to make millions and millions of decisions.
By the time you get out of bed, it’s fired dozens of different muscles in different combinations already.
By the time you get to work you’ve done quite a lot and the brain has controlled all of that.
There is so much that our brains have to do on a daily basis that it becomes very good at creating lots of little shortcuts to help it.
Regular actions become a combination of different routines that we’ve ingrained into our conscious.
When we first learned you drive, our brains were working overtime to process all the inputs and decide on appropriate actions.
Now we drive most places on autopilot.
Same for everything.
When we first learned to walk, eat, climb stairs, get dressed, lower ourselves into a bath, etc we had to think about it.
Now, next to no thought is required.
And I bet if someone monitored you do these things, they’d see certain consistencies that you aren’t even aware of.
Same first leg into the trousers every time.
Same leg taking the first step / stair.
Doing many things in a certain order.
And so on.
Thousands of habits.
Like a nun’s convention.
## Had you worked that title out yet? ##
We do the same with how we eat.
Develop these routines which we can do on autopilot.
It’s then the ‘change’ we find hard.
After all, is batch cooking a few meals on a Sunday night actually any harder than the cumulative effort of popping to the take out or shop on the way home five separate times?
Is walking to Tesco Express at lunch and getting chicken, nuts and berries actually any harder than walking to Costs and getting a latte, panini and muffin?
Is drinking water any harder than having a cuppa?
You get the point.
It’s the creating a new habit that is the more challenging bit.
Not impossible, of course.
But, we’ll freely admit that change is harder than not changing.
But, the great thing is……..
It’s only the process of creating the new habit that is hard.
It won’t be as hard to do for the rest of your life.
In fact, the first time you do something different, it is the hardest.
Then every subsequent time it gets a little easier.
Until it is the new habit that happens on autopilot.
So, you only have to push through the difficultly of establishing the habit.
If you do something 5 times you’re fairly likely to continue.
Do it properly for 28 days and you stand a very good chance of it carrying on.
So, that’s your target.
The thing you’re struggling with.
Commit to doing it the next 5 chances you get.
When you’ve done that, commit to the 28 days.
Then go from there 🙂
Much love,
Jon ‘Two nuns in a bath. One says to the other ‘Where’s the soap?” The other replies “It does, doesn’t it’ Hall and Matt ‘What do you call a nun who walks in her sleep? A roaming catholic’ Nicholson
P.S. Quick reminder that it’s 7 days to the find-out-more meeting for those who like the sound of losing 20lbs (or getting a Beach Body), potentially for free. Click here for more details –> myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting.
