How to change bad habits: learn from rehab!

Have you ever wanted to change bad habits and behaviours? Something you dislike about yourself? Have you succeeded? Like me, you most likely find it incredibly hard to change old patterns. It’s this last problematic bit where you are fully aware of your undesirable actions, but don’t seem to find a way to change.

The tool I want to introduce to you comes from curing addiction, fx alcohol or love- and sex addiction. The concept of top- and bottom line behaviours.

Let’s look at two everyday examples, one from work and one from private. How many of us are addicted to the deadline effect? Repeatedly postponing work until the last moment, causing us stress and sleepless nights for the benefit of being more productive. We also all know that one person from our past, we keep coming back to. Someone we know is not good for us, but we keep texting or seeing them.

So once you are committed to disengage with your bad behaviours or habits, how do you sustain the change?

4 Steps to change bad habits and behaviours

Having mentioned the concept of top- and bottom line behaviours, I’ll introduce the method by using the personal example of social media consumption. Essentially Facebook and LinkedIn are my biggest distractors. They are showstoppers to my productivity and to put it extreme: they hinder success.

I am using 4 steps to replace old with new habits.

1 Define top- and bottom line behaviours

As a first step I define bottom line behaviours. In rehab bottom line behaviours correspond to the behaviour you want to avoid. Unlike with an alcohol addiction, I don’t want to avoid social media, I want to be more disciplined around it. I want to avoid mindless scrolling that keeps me from meaningful work and meaningful interactions. So my bottom line behaviours are a set of rules or conditions I apply to social media to eventually get more productive time.

For example: I wont use Facebook unless I get a personal message. Or: I will only check LinkedIn twice a day.

Now speaking of my underlying desire to be more productive, I also put up top line behaviours. Top line behaviours are actions you want to engage in because they contribute to reaching your goal. My top line behaviours are: reading at least 30 minutes every day and working out regularly. Reading every day gives me knowledge, inspiration and usually kicks off a productivity high (flow). Working out grounds my system and clears my mind.

Once you have defined what behaviours to avoid and what behaviours to engage in, it’s important to bring it from intention to reality.

2 Make it specific

Whether or not you are able to reinforce new behaviours is largely dependent on your commitment to make it specific. See, ‘working out regularly’ is not specific. Making an appointment to go running with Anne on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 is. Now add a reminder that you cannot overlook and you are good to go. A note on the mirror, a calendar entry or someone reminding you will all do. Note: getting someone else involved should be a support, not you outsourcing responsibility.

3 Assess and reiterate

First time right is an illusion when it comes to changing behaviours and habits. I have looked at my top- and bottom line behaviours every Sunday night and assessed how I did. Sometimes it hasn’t worked because I needed to change something about it to fit my style of working better. For example I need flexibility in my calendar, so fixed running dates would never work for me. They may perfectly work for others. Reiterate until you feel your defined behaviours are executable.

4 Practice, practice, practice

Expect to fail and fall out of your newly defined habits at times. This article was written half a year before I published it. The reason it took me so long was that after 3 good weeks, I fell out of practice so hard that I felt ashamed of posting… The practice here is: once you notice, keep coming back to your original plan. Practice patience and compassion with yourself along the way.

To sum up, changing behaviours and habits is hard. Using the concept of top- and bottom line behaviour from curing addictions may be a game changer to help you with that. 

Try it.

—————————————

If you want to read more about top- bottom line behaviours in the context of addiction, see: https://www.uk-rehab.com/blog/top-and-bottom-line-behaviour-explained/