I’ve always admired how my husband tackled his Honours in Psychology while working full time. We were already married, so there were family responsibilities as well. But he had a clear goal that he believed he could achieve – while maintaining a healthy work-study-life balance.
I know there were times when he wasn’t happy with his progress, but he overcame setbacks, changed some of his behaviours, and successfully completed his Honours.
If learning goals derail because of bad habits, ‘observing’ the bad habits that are getting in your way is the first step in changing your behaviour.
Procrastination
Do you ever find yourself leaving an assignment for the final hours?
If this is a regular pattern, you may be a procrastinator. And although you may get the assignment done in the end by cramming, you probably won’t retain much information by doing that.
Being disorganised
Is your workspace clean and tidy? Do you have a list to help you remember what you wanted to get done? Or do you worry about the task you forgot because you don’t keep a list?
Getting organised, like forming any good habit, takes practice.
Easily distracted
Do you easily get distracted? WhatsApp, Netflix, social media… It’s easy to stop studying and let the distraction win you over.
How can you change bad habits into better habits?
Most of our habits are part of our daily routine, and we give them little thought as we move through our day because our behaviour or response has become automatic. In The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life And Business, Charles Duhigg outlines the stages of a habit:
- Stage 1 is the cue. This is what triggers your brain to begin the behaviour because it predicts the reward. Let’s take the habit of getting easily distracted by social media. While focused on your studying, you momentarily glance at your phone, and this is your cue to scroll through your social media.
- Stage 2 is the craving. This is about wanting the reward, which then motivates a response. In the above example, the craving may be the desire to switch off mentally, do something other than studying, alleviate a brief moment of boredom or take a break from your studies that the habit of looking at your social media provides.
- Stage 3 is the habit, routine or response, so in my example it is the act of opening your social media app and scrolling through your newsfeed.
- Finally, stage 4, you are rewarded by the distraction or mental break from your studies.
If you want to change the habit of getting distracted by social media, you must work out exactly what the cue, craving and reward are for you if it differs from my example above. And then you should try and keep the cue, the craving and the reward, and only change one thing: the habit or response.
Instead of reaching for the phone as usual, try doing something more productive like going for a brisk walk, practising a hobby, or talking to family or a friend. You could also leave your phone in another room when you’re studying so that it is out of sight and hopefully out of mind for a while – to help you change your habit.
Keeping something familiar at the beginning (the cue and craving) and the end (the reward) increases your chances of successfully changing a bad habit into a good habit. Repetition is key to changing a habit, so keep at it until the new habit becomes as automatic as getting out of bed on the same side each morning!
You can try applying this technique to any habit you want to change.
There is however another key ingredient to changing a habit.
Belief
Changing a habit or response is the ultimate aim, but the other essential element is belief. Do you believe you’ll succeed in changing your habit? Do you believe you’ll succeed in your learning goal?
Your thoughts, words and reality are all connected, which is why positive thinking is so important. If you regularly think negative thoughts such as “I won’t succeed”, there’s a good probability that these thoughts will become your reality.
Even if you don’t believe it at first, why not try some positive affirmations such as “I can easily stop getting distracted by social media”?
Changing a bad habit takes time, but instead of relying on willpower to make it happen – which may fail you when you get tired and stressed – focus on repeating the new behaviour until it becomes the new norm.