Ok, so my last post was about resolving to live more consciously in order to make changes that will be longer lasting.
The challenge is that it sounds like, “you know that thing you do that you really want to change… well… stop doing it.” There is a great vignette, Stop It - MadTV, that does a great job of capturing that feeling…
What i am talking about is the process of making changes in our lives. There is indeed something about our biology that causes us to create patterns… and then repeating them often enough, these patterns become so ingrained that they become unconscious. So, there is actually a bit of biology to the process of making change.
At the core, though, it means being conscious of the patterns i currently exist, honestly assessing whether i want to keep them or not, and then identifying new patterns that are needed to replace the old ones. Oh, and it is going to take time.
i am no biologist and no expert on the structure of the brain so this will be an overly simplistic explanation of how this all works. The brain is an elastic structure that relies on dendrites and neurons to fire and connect. These connections are made when we have an experience… and they are made deeper and stronger the more often and regularly we repeat this experience… and they are actually “burned” in to the structure if there is a high degree of emotion tied to the experiences.
These become patterns and the brain actually changes it’s structure to physically support these patterns.
And so, as we slowly, create connections that no longer require us to be conscious - they just happen and our behavior just happens. We start to do some things on autopilot. I have a friend whose only experiences with dogs as a child were biting or chasing affairs… and today he is deathly afraid of all dogs - his “flight” mechanism is so great that even if a dog appears on TV, he has to leave the room or change the channel. I have a very specific morning routine that i have been doing every morning for about 20 years. When i have been on vacation or go on a business trip, the very thought of potentially not having my routine makes me very uncomfortable. I have a couple of female friends who cant understand why every guy they date ends up treating them the same way…
The more often we exhibit a behavior in close association with some other stimulus (exercise first thing in the morning, having cereal with the news, being attacked by dogs) the more deeply embedded will that memory be and the less we will have to exert our “will” to do the behavior and eventually this behavior will become unconscious.
In order to make any substantive changes in our lives, we have to first recognize and be conscious of our current patterns. That’s why looking at where we spent our time in 2008 is a great place to start - it isnt our memory or our beliefs or where we feel we shouldve spent our time… it is reality. We have to be conscious of the patterns in our lives.
The beauty of this, though, is that once you understand how this works, you can create your own patterns that you can, consciously, build in order to get different and better results in 2009. You have the control now… it is just a function of being aware of that control and exercising it. When you start the process of putting behaviors or patterns in to your life, you need to ask: what behaviors do i want to put in and why do i want to put them in and you need to know that these behaviors will take time to become unconscious patterns… the ones you have today didnt get there over night. i remember that it took about 4 months for the feelings of “need” for a diet soda to go away (i quit on a dare from my wife)… and about a year before they just stopped coming back at certain times of the day or with meals.
As you go about the next couple of weeks, look at how you spend your time and ask your self “is this a pattern?” and then “is this a pattern i want to keep or change?”
The next step is to then identify what you WANT to have as patterns… what behaviors or actions to you WANT to do… Why do you want to do them, what is the end result you are hoping for, who can help hold you accountable and then begin making them a pattern.