Your Brain on Mini Habits – See. Perceive. Act
What trips us up sometimes, former procrastinators, and adds to our load, is not so much a problem with us but the methods we use. If we use methods that cooperate with our brains as God made them, we have much more success.
In Mini Habits, Stephen Guise explains how our brains work so we can see why mini habits work for us. This is SO helpful to me because I know what I have to do and it equips me to persevere.
- A habit has a nerve pathway in the brain. When it is triggered by a cue, we have the urge to do that habitual behavior. (Wake up…shower) Our brain prefers to perform habits because they already have existing pathways and familiar rewards. New behaviors have no pathways. Therefore, we have to deliberately override the typical behavior. The more we do that, the bigger, stronger the new pathway grows until it becomes the habit. We want to create and strengthen new pathways using repetition.
- Think of the subconscious brain and the conscious. (The brain is more complex, but this will serve us.)
The subconscious is the basal ganglia which recognizes and repeats patterns – unless it is taught something else.
Repetition is the language of the subconscious. Form a new habit by changing your brain with repetition. The brain will resist, so use repetition and reward. Repeat a behavior over time so your subconscious brain will automate it. The subconscious loves efficiency. Automation is more efficient than continual decision-making.
The conscious brain is the prefrontal cortex behind your forehead. It’s the smart “manager” that understands long-term benefits and consequences. It has the ability to override the subconscious/basal ganglia. It oversees repeater operations and steps in when something can be done better. However, the manager gets tired and stressed. To form habits, we repeat a behavior, which teaches the repeater part of the brain to like what the manager wants. Then the repeater (basal ganglia/subconscious) carries on the desired behavior. The manager gets relief from constant decision making.
The brain resists change. Big change requires big willpower. A mini habit is a low willpower Trojan horse that gains easy access into the brain’s control room. Guise’s brain outright rejected the idea of a 30 minute workout. He considered one pushup. “How pathetic. One pushup isn’t going to help anything.” But there was no brain push back, no resistance. He’d snuck into the control room. So, he did one push up – and a few more while he was there. His journey began.
The brain is slow to change and stable. That’s good. Patience and self-control (fruit of the Spirit) help our brains make a change. Repeating positive actions can make God’s gift of automatic behavior a great boost to our lives and help us be fruitful.
Your conscious/manager can train your subconscious/repeater. How have you taken advantage of this already?
