There are many ways you can fall off the wagon when trying to change your habits
I’m writing this on a bad day. At the moment, I don’t believe I can truly change myself, and it’s only day five of my quest! Last time I used this metaphor: it feels good to think about going on a diet with a full stomach, but you’ll only find out what you’re made off when you’re hungry. Well, I’m hungry now. I feel like giving up on my plans to turn my life around.
It seems like a good time to write about the risk of change when I’m feeling that risk so intensely! With the risk of change, I mean: the risk that you’ll revert to your old ways. You fail the diet, you stop going to the gym and in my case: I’m failing to change my behavior around my phone habits and I have not once started my morning with writing yet (which is what I wanted to do).
Let’s look at a model to make this whole story more visual. You might know the quote “all models are wrong, some are useful”1 and this applies here as well. A model can never accurately depict our messy reality. Nevertheless, behold the Transtheoretical Model (Stages of Change). It’s not a quadrant or a pyramid so it’s already a winner in my book.
Let’s take my desire to change my smartphone habits as an example to lead you through this model. My smartphone usage slowly crept up over the years. It started innocent enough, with my first iPhone in 2010. I remember thinking that this device would make me more productive. Well, I don’t think that ever came true. Right from the start, I mainly used my phone for consumption. I never used it much for creating value in my life.
I remember being intensely bored at work around 2015 and going to the toilet to browser Reddit. That was the start of my Reddit reading addiction. My favorite subreddits all centered around drama, but Relationship Advice was the one I read the most. I must have read thousands of stories of how people cheat on each other. Enough rambling, the point is that I did not see a problem with my behavior yet. In the model this is the precontemplation phase.
You cannot make people want to change themselves when they are in the precontemplation phase. They don’t see the problem and will jump through all the mental hoops required to deny there’s a problem. Cognitive dissonance is one hell of a drug. As a nutrition consultant I don’t want to help people who are in this phase, but get sent to me by a doctor to lose weight: there’s literally zero chance of them succeeding because they do not want to change. News flash: you cannot change people, they have to want it themselves! Coming back to my own example: because almost everyone right now has a phone addiction (and consequent dopamine regulation problem) I did not see any problem with my behaviour.
The pandemic ramped up my phone usage even more and I noticed that I felt unhappy while browsing Reddit, but I could not stop myself from picking up my phone to open the app again and again. I saw a parallel to someone with a cigarette addiction, they don’t feel better when they’re lighting up for the tenth time of the day, but the urge is just so strong! This phase, contemplation, lasted for a couple of years! No wonder it’s so hard to change now. The habit is firmly ingrained in my life.
During my travels in Japan last month I felt the urge to change my life and I felt the determination to do something about it. I don’t think it’s healthy for me to have this dopamine regulation problem (because that is what unchecked doomscrolling is!). This determination phase is characterized by wanting to take action within the next 30 days. This is also the “with a full stomach it’s easy to think about going on a diet”-phase. I felt accomplished without having accomplished anything yet! Just thinking about what I would gain from this change felt so good. I clearly saw the end result and not the bumpy road towards that result. I did not already change my behaviour in Japan while there was nothing stopping me. I only mentally prepared myself to say goodbye to Reddit.
I’m now in the action phase, day 5. I deleted Reddit last Friday. It has not magically reduced my phone usage. I’ve been browsing Twitter and Hacker News a lot more to compensate the void I’m feeling. This sounds dramatic, yes. This morning I had the first urge to reinstall Reddit and I laughed at myself. It truly feels similar to kicking a cigarette habit (even though I’ve never smoked), this is so strange!
Because I’m having a bad day it’s easy to give into those urges and to think “screw it all, what’s the point”. It’s also very hard to see the other good things I’ve been doing. Negative thinking compounds and makes everything way too dramatic in my brain. But: I’ve been walking a lot more, I’ve started a couch25k program for running, I’ve started going to the gym again. I cannot expect to turn my whole life around in 5 days, but perfectionism is another annoying trait I have to deal with. So my approach is this: accept this day as a bad one, go to sleep and try again tomorrow.
I really want to avoid the relapse phase! But it might very well happen at one point. This is when you can show yourself what you’re made off. Don’t compound small mistakes into giving up. Accept what happened, pick yourself up and go at it again.
If I succeed at changing my phone habits, it’ll hopefully become my new normal and I’ll be in the maintenance phase.
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That’s the model and a bit of my story. I think this model is quite neat! If you’ve ever tried to change something about your life and failed, can you pinpoint where? I’m guessing most people fail in the action phase or the relapse phase, but I also know some people who never left the contemplation phase for something they wished to change. They let themselves be calmed by the idea of changing and the fake feeling of accomplishment that comes with that and then never took action.
Changing yourself is risky. There are many ways it can fail. The biggest risk of change in my view is letting small setbacks compound into giving up entirely. This is the one I’m trying to avoid now.
Knowing some risks of change is a big step in avoiding them and dealing with them. Change always entails unknown risks as well, but that also makes it exciting. I love learning about myself!
If you read these posts purely for entertainment: great. If you want more, I have a challenge for you. Pick something (small) in your life that you want to change and go on this quest with me!
In the next post I will elaborate on what I mean with “Live Sensibly”. See you then and take care.