Transform your habits

Time Duration: 60 min
No. of session: 2

Most of our behavior is done automatically, without conscious thinking; like walking, riding a bicycle, or driving a car. When we first engage in a new action or behavior, our brain must process tons of new information, correcting and replacing it until we are able to do it correctly. However, as soon as we understand how a task works, the behavior starts becoming automatic and the mental activity required to do the task decreases significantly. It has become a habit. But while some habits help us get more efficiently through the day, there might be habits that are getting in the way of our success and having a limiting impact on our work and life. 

Once formed, habits are very difficult to undo. Our brain will always try to take the path of least resistance and habit is a mental pathway of that least resistance. Our brain doesn’t need to use much energy as it is “running on autopilot”. The best approach is then to create a new habit, a new mental pathway, and therefore a new habit taking the focus and attention away from the existing comfortable pattern. 

To overcome old ill-serving habits, and to acquire new, helpful ones, we will use the following brain-friendly approach over two sessions:

Session 1:

1. Awareness of the habit. You have identified the pattern you would like to get rid of? Congratulations, this is the first step to a change. 
2. Impact of the habit. We will gain clarity about the impact this habit is having on you and how far-reaching the effects are. We will take time to move beyond their first, most obvious answers and identify all aspects of influence.
3. Commitment to change. Change takes attention, effort, and time—and it can feel quite uncomfortable. We will need to go past that.
4. Define the new habit. We will identify the changes you would like to make and create actions around them. 

Session 2:

1. Review upon the commitment to the actions taken in the first session and learning from them: how did it work? Did you make progress? How was your experience? 
2. Refine the actions, enhance the new action with the learnings.
3. Support the growth by hardwiring the new routines, celebrating small wins, and finding ways to stay motivated. 

We know that new habits take time to become fully automatic, but we also know that once they are, we don’t need to exert much effort to continue. Deliberately forming desirable habits is a sure-way shortcut to more effectiveness and better wellbeing. I am looking forward to helping you with that.