Question

Please assume strategies by yourself or just google them. There is no other data than the given below.

Activity 1: Reading (At least 350 - 500 words)

Identify the strategy that you will use for the week and the challenge(s) that you hope the strategy will help you to overcome.

Record your observations for the week of your choices. The goal is to practice this your chosen strategy each day.

Reflect on the following:

During my seven day experiment, what happened?

As a result of what happened, what did I learn or relearn?

As a result of what I learned or relearned, I will ...

Answer 1

Habits are formed by repeating any particular behaviour over and over again. New habits are indeed hard to from and old habits indeed die hard. A theory suggests that an individual usually take about 3 weeks or 21 days, to form a new habit. But the point is to stick to the same routine for 21 days for the new habit to form.

A habit that I abhor about myself is bingeing on junk just before I am about to sleep. I know I dislike this habit of mine as it makes me add extra pounds. I want to get rid of this habit, but I am unable to.

Habit loop governs any habit. You are in a constant loop which makes you continue with a particular habit without making any changes. It includes, cue, routine and reward.

Cue, triggers a particular habit. When I am about to sleep, I automatically go to the kicthen, go through my junk drawer and just grab anything sweet that's kept. It could be a biscuit, or chocolate, a sweet pretzel, just anything sweet. Just before hitting the sack, is a cue to kick in my habit of junk bingeing.

Routine; when you especially do not like a habit, you know you want to change it, what you first do is, identify a pattern in your behaviour. I head to the kitchen before I hit the bed. I am in a routine of doing so. I need to try different things instead of stepping in to the kitchen and automatically reaching out to something sweet.

Reward; it is the reward that drives our behaviour. The satisfaction that I get after eating a chocolate, makes me want to keep going back to it. However, in this situation, the satiation does not achieve anything positive. Instead I just end up adding extra pounds and in taking empty calories which does not make me feel good about myself the next morning.

New habits are indeed hard to form, but consistency with change in behaviour makes it achievable.