Long time readers of this corner of the internet may be aware I have a passion for tea. Not just any tea mind, it must be made in a warmed pot, with Yorkshire Tea Gold. Also, please put the milk in first. George Orwell was wrong on this, trust me.
I could not, in all honesty, prove to you if this makes any actual difference to the quality of the beverage (with the exception of Yorkshire Tea obviously) but this is beside the point.
Because I believe it will taste infinitely better, it does. When I was little, this is how my Grandmother taught me to make it. My mother always made it this way, waiting for me when I got home from school. Since then, years and years of repeating the ritual have made it part of who I am.
We all have these little habits and quirks burned into our brains. They've become instinctive and so hard to change hard to change it takes, on average, sixty six days to change them. It doesn't matter if it's a habit you wish to lose, or something you feel you need to begin, you're looking at over two months of doing it every single day before it really becomes something you'll stick with.
People fail at New Year's Resolutions, diets or so called 'fresh starts', not because they're short on willpower, but because willpower is a bit crap. It's a useful short-term resource, it can get you through a rubbish day, or having to listen to a Stereophonics song, it's just that it runs out of steam fairly quickly. Then you're back to square one, only this time scarred by failure, feeling you've wasted your time.
Real, lasting change happens because we have no choice, or we've found a way to hack our own operating system.
Why am I telling you this? Because lockdown will have achieved the 'change without choice' thing. After one hundred and twenty days of lockdown, give or take, we've had double the time to break or pick up new habits.
So when we go back to normal, don't expect anything of the sort.
Because we are what we repeatedly do, the new habits formed in lockdown will be hard to break. So I'd forget much of the rhetoric around seismic changes in attitudes, although, of course, there are bound to be some. What's maybe more interesting, but less talked about, is the sheer weight of all these new daily habits, so hard now to undo.
We've got used to no rush hour, spending more time with the kids, not having to make the effort to dress for work. I was talking to someone else the other day who was surprised to have relished not having to socialise with people too much and has loved the time alone.
Me? On the plus side, I don't think about daily meditation, I wanted to stay sane when all this hit and just did it, now it's just something I do. On the debit side, I'd been going to bed later and getting up later, not so good. I'd got too attached to WhatsApp rather than calling people and really need to do something about getting distracted by phones. Also, I may have kept up with cycling, but I neglected pilates.
Thankfully there are ways to hack my system. You can too. Forget willpower, use your own nature in your favour.
First, start with loss aversion, we naturally hate to part with things we have got used to. So build a streak. Just make a 66 day planner and tick every day you did, or didn't do, what you set out to. It will be hard at first, but soon you'll decide you haven't come this far to only come this far. You won't want to lose what you've already achieved. Those ticks will feel good and get you through.
Second, make it as easy to do it as you can. Whatever routine you now have, try and go with that flow as much as possible.
For example, every time I make a hot drink, I do a few core pilates exercises. My body doesn't care when I do them, just that I do them. I sleep with the blinds open and the natural light in the morning has woken me up - all I needed to remember for a while was to not shut the blinds before bed. I may have been groggy on a few mornings, but I've built up the habit of having a cold shower, which jolts me into feeling alive.
So if you're a planner type and want to get to grips with how people might be behaving differently around whatever you're selling, you might want to look at their habits before their attitudes. You could be on to something.
If you want to change a few habits of your own, think about little changes that add up over time rather than relying on willpower. If you improve my 1% every day for a year, that's 365% by the time your done.
Change a little, change a lot.
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