How to successfully change a habit

Hi there! My name's Caroline Cavanagh, and I'm an anxiety specialist, but today I'm gonna go a little bit off-piste and use the knowledge that I have around how the mind works to talk to you about habits and share with you 5 tips to help you change a habit. And why talk about this now? It's early January. A lot of people use the 1st of January as an opportunity to put those New Year's resolutions in, to say, right, this time, I'm gonna change that habit. And the statistics kinda show that by the 19th of January, over 95% of those habits have reverted back to their normal way. Most people will have failed. So, as we're only— what is it today? I don't know, I think it's the 6th. We're a third of the way there, so by sharing these 5 tips, I'm hoping that you cannot be a statistic and find new ways, by deploying these tips, to actually make sure that beyond the 19th, and for as long as you want to have this new habit, it's in place for you. So let's first of all look at 2 of the main reasons why habits don't get changed. First one is often that people don't actually want to change enough. There has to be a really strong motivation to change a habit. I'm gonna come back to that. Second reason is that often from where you are to where you want to get to Is an awful long way. So I love working in metaphors, and the metaphor that sort of came to my mind when I was thinking about this was, it's a bit like saying, right, on the 1st of January, I'm going to go and climb Mount Everest, but for the last 30 years, I've been laying by a swimming pool with flip-flops on. However, I get my flip-flops on and I'm going to climb Mount Everest. It's hardly surprising within a very short space of time, Me in my flip-flops in the pool is gonna go, mm-hmm, I don't think so, and I'll give up. So you've got to make sure that that challenge isn't so big that it becomes overwhelmingly daunting. Now, one of the best apps for habit sharing that I've ever come across is the Couch to 5K, and what I love about this app is it actually puts in place a lot of the things that that I'm going to be sharing with you today. So let's get on with it. Number 1, first thing that I would suggest that you do is to come up with 20 reasons as to why you want to change your habit. So going back to that, you need to have a strong enough motivation. Start with thinking about all the good things that you're going to have when you change this habit, but then it's really important to flip it and look at the other side. What are going to be the costs to you if you don't change this habit? And I'm here to tell you that if you can't come up with 20 reasons, the chances are you don't have enough of a motivation to make the change. So really dig deep. And often, if you get that list of 20, you're already an awful long way down that road of psychologically into the mode of changing that habit. Next thing, point number 2, is make yourself accountable. Tell people that you want to do this. Now, years ago when I started out my career as a hypnotherapist, I did a bit of work with people who wanted to give up smoking. I insisted that before I would work with them, they had to put something out on social media to say that they were going to give up smoking, because they were going to need that accountability from others. And that can often be really scary. But the reality is, it's very easy to let ourselves down, whereas when you go public with it, it's much harder to say to other people, I didn't quite manage to do it. So by having that extra layer of accountability can help back with that motivation to keep going when the going gets tough. So the more people you hold yourself accountable, the more support you're going to get, because most of these people that are hearing, I want to give up smoking, I want to lose weight, whatever it may be, are there to support you. They're not there to make it harder, so use that support, turn it into a positive. Tip number 3, take small steps. Back to that starting here, finishing here, and in between it's like a chasm. It's very easy to fall into it, whereas if you start here and the next step is just there, It becomes very, very doable. Now let me tell you a little bit of a story. This is something before Couch to 5K even came about. I committed to do the 5K Run for Life, and I hate running, but I did make myself accountable because I agreed to set it up and there was 30 other women doing it with me, and my ego wouldn't let me not do it and not come within the first kind of 4 or 5 people. I really wanted to be at the front of that group. doing it. And so rather than going, right, I've got to do 5K, day 1 I just went out for a run and ran as far as I possibly could, which actually wasn't that far. Next time I went out running, I said to myself, okay, I know I can do that far, so I'm just going to go to the next tree, the next bend in the road, whatever was achievable but still a stretch because it was going beyond the point where I gave up last time. And each time I went out, I just took that extra step. I used to run around a lake, so it would be the next bend, the next significant point along the side of that lake, until very quickly I found myself running around the lake. Now, if I'd set out to just run around the lake straight off, I wouldn't have done it. I'd have failed. My motivation would have dropped. However, that leads us really nicely on to point number 4. That is? Consistency. You need to keep doing it. It's no good just saying, right, I'm going to go out and do 5K. Oops, didn't do it, give up. By going out regularly, keep doing something on and on, you build up an inner strength. And again, something that I decided to do this time last year was to start up 10 minutes of yoga every morning. So beginning of January, every morning when I got up, I did a series of Salutations to the Sun. So if you're not a yogi, it's a little series of exercises that's really good for stretching the body in a nice way and actually getting your metabolism up and running really, really effectively. I did that consistently until now, a year later. It's as much a part of my day as brushing my teeth in the morning. I can't imagine Not doing it. But that didn't happen after 2 weeks or even 3 weeks. I can't honestly say how long it took, but it was doing it day in, day out, consistently, that meant it'd become a new habit. So putting these 2 last points together— doing something small and doing it consistently— let's take losing weight, a common habit that people want to change, their eating behaviours, This time of year. If you say, right, I'm going to go on this really extreme diet, it's a huge chasm. You're probably going to fall into it. Whereas if you say, okay, for the next week I'm just going to stop putting sugar in my tea, and you do that every single day, that's a small step. Everything else stays the same. Then week 2, you might say, okay, I'm going to carry on not putting sugar in my tea, and I'm not going to have that packet of crisps with my lunch. Another small step. But you do that consistently for a week, it feels more comfortable, and you add another one, you add another one, and you'll suddenly find within a month you are eating significantly less calories every day. But it's a very achievable way because you're taking small steps and you're doing it consistently. So let's move on to the last tip. Tip number 5: Celebrate success. Success. Now, I'm a mum. I also love dogs. I've got a dog, and I know that with training dogs and with training my kids, or attempting to anyway, you get much more success by celebrating success than by penalising failure. So if my kids did something well, I go, brilliant! Really love it! Huge fuss! And the kids go, oh, this is good, I'll do that again! Whereas if I just focused on the times they didn't do what I wanted, and did the old proverbial slap, then that's coming from a place of fear. It's not nearly as motivating. So every time you recognise, you know, I've got a week now without having sugar in my tea. Brilliant! Well done, me! Psychologically, that has a really big impact. Your mind goes, cool, I'll do that a little bit more then, making that habit even easier. Consistency becoming even easier to do. So they're now all compounding on each other. And then, quite simply, rinse and repeat! Go back to thinking about, what are my 20 reasons? Can you see how you're actually delivering on those reasons now? Your motivation increases. Celebrate success. Tell people, do you know, I'm doing this now. I've lost a couple of pounds. I've done this. I've given up smoking. Whatever it is, celebrate that success, even if it's only an element of the success. Be accountable for it. Celebrate it. Add the next new step in. Be consistent with it. Celebrate that success and round you go again and keep going. And by putting those 5 steps into place, going round and round, you will find that you can change a habit, whether it's a little habit or a great big one, really, really easily. So I hope you found that useful. Quick summary there. So we've been through it. 20 reasons. Make yourself accountable. Take small steps. Be consistent. Celebrate success. There's a lot more information on how to use your mind in a different way, so if you've enjoyed this video, please feel free to take a look at the resources page of my website carolinecavanagh.co.uk. Where there's lots of downloadable documents that also talk about how you can use your mind in a different way. And I will be back next week with another video to share with you, another way to use your mind, and another way— perhaps next one will be more around anxiety too. But for now, thank you very much for watching, and I look forward to talking to you again very soon.