The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 240 - Broken Habits

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hi, Peter.

Pete: So I've just returned home from a two week vacation in New Zealand...I'm very lucky.

Jen: Amazing.

Pete: It was amazing. But one of the things that happened when I went on this holiday is I fell out of a few habits, as one can do in a holiday. And shocker, I'm experiencing some friction and some tension in trying to get these habits back in my life, and I need you to help me.

Jen: I have no personal experience with what you're talking about at all...ooh, building back broken habits. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: Yes, exactly. I feel like this is surely a universal experience, where there are certain habits we have through the routines that we have when we're, you know, in the 98% of our life. And then, every now and then we're lucky enough to go on a break or travel or do something, and I think in a healthy way we change some of those habits. I actually deliberately don't try and maintain all of my certain healthy habits when I'm away, which I think is important. But there's two in particular that I paused, which I don't always pause, which I'm finding difficult building back up to some momentum. One is, for about five years, I think almost, I've written a weekly blog, occasionally twice weekly.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And in every other holiday previous, I've actually batched a bunch of blogs, scheduled them to go out so that it is consistent over the time that I'm away. It's still going out once a week, on a Sunday, at noodlescratchers.com if anyone's interested. And I didn't do it this trip. I didn't batch them. I didn't schedule them. I didn't send them. I have, in the past. I've written blogs while I'm on holidays, because I'm like worried that I've broken the habit and I don't want to break the habit. And this time, for whatever reason, I just let it go for two weeks. And firstly, you know, like nothing broke. No one died, which I think is a healthy reminder for myself of like the importance of like certain things. They're not that important. I'm not that important. People are okay without a blog from Pete for a couple of weeks. However, I sat down on Sunday to try and write something, and it was like I'd never used my fingers on a keyboard in a blog ever. And I was like, "Oh my god, the process of trying to write something that's worthy of sharing is impossible." So, that was quite funny. And then, the other one is like, you know, like a habit around doing a ten-minute meditation, which I try and do every morning. I didn't really do it on the holiday, but I figured the whole trip was kind of a mindfulness exercise. And now, I'm like, "Wait, I don't think I have time for ten minutes again."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: And it's just so wild. Like, it took two weeks, and like all of these stories have now been created by me, because I paused. So, that's where I'm at. What do you think?

Jen: I'm just so familiar with this, especially right now. I am trying to figure out how to get back into my morning routine, something that I took out of it. And even though I know on paper what I used to do, I'm like, "Where am I going to find the time to do that?" I'm like, "Yeah, what you used to do is you woke up earlier. Like, just wake up earlier. Like, what is so hard about this?"

Pete: But sleep is so nice.

Jen: I know, sleep is so nice. But once something's out, it's amazing how quickly something else comes in to fill the space. So it's not like when the thing goes out, you're holding this empty space where you're like, "Come back when you're ready." It's like, all these other things fill it in. So, it's not as simple as adding one thing back in. It requires a little bit of Rubik's Cube-ing.

Pete: 100%. No, that's exactly right. It's not like there's a bunch of empty space, I agree. It's more like, now I wonder, "Well, do I have time? How did I ever have time?"

Jen: Right.

Pete: And I'm like, "What do you mean, how did you ever have time? Two weeks ago, you used to do this." It's so frustrating. So frustrating, so frustrating. Anyway, so the thing that I have found particularly helpful in the last few days, in thinking about habits, I was reminded of James Clear's book, Atomic Habits.

Jen: I was just going to say that. Yep.

Pete: It's kind of like the seminal book on habits. And actually, I don't even think this part of it is in the book. I think this is actually something I heard him say in an interview about the book. But he talked about, in terms of maintaining habits, you should reduce the scope and keep the habit.

Jen: Mmm-hmm.

Pete: Or flip it around: Keep the habit, reduce the scope. So this, I just, I'm so obsessed with this because he goes on to share a bunch of examples. Like, for me...so meditation, for example, right? If you have a ten-minute meditation habit and you tell yourself a story one day, "I just literally don't have ten minutes," what you might do, which I've done, is like, "Well, then I won't meditate at all, because I don't have ten minutes."

Jen: Right.

Pete: Instead, he says, "Keep the habit, reduce the scope." So meditate for a minute, thirty seconds, meditate for two minutes, like whatever. Reduce the scope, but keep the habit. And he, you know, shares examples of like, "Instead of going to the gym for an hour, do twenty push-ups at home." Like, that takes one minute, again. And like, you've kept the habit, you've exercised still, but you just reduce the scope. And that, I think, is such a, for me, just such a profoundly helpful reminder to not have to have these huge chunks of time for the certain habits that we're trying to maintain. And so, I tried to like punch out a blog post in like twenty-five minutes. And I've been trying to do like, you know, five-minute guided meditations. And then eventually, hopefully work my way back up to a whole ten minutes, which is, even that's not much.

Jen: Yeah. That book, Atomic Habits, is a gift that keeps on giving. It's just, it's so so so good. You know, it's interesting because on the flip side of that, that it's easier to keep the habit if you don't break it but you just adjust it. I often, with my acting clients, am dealing with some physical habits that they have. And I have found that it's easier to adjust the habit than to ask them to break it.

Pete: Oh, interesting. Can you give me an example?

Jen: Sure. So, I'm just laughing because I know that any actors listening who do musical theater are going to recognize this right away.

Pete: Yeah, whereas I'm like, I'm a muggle. And I'm like, "What do you mean a physical habit?" Like, tell me. Tell me more. Will you give me an example?

Jen: Okay, here's an example. Sometimes when people are singing, they will gesture. And then like, a little voice in their head is like, "Ooh, that was like...that was maybe too big." So then, they undermine the gesture by dropping their arms, and it makes a slapping sound against their thighs.

Pete: Gotcha.

Jen: I don't know if you could just hear that in the mic.

Pete: I just did it, as well.

Jen: Okay.

Pete: For listeners, we both just did it on Zoom.

Jen: It's the drop and slap. It's a pretty typical audition habit. It doesn't happen that much when people are in rehearsal or performance. It's like a nervous habit. So instead of telling someone, "Don't drop your arms and slap your thighs, because it becomes a really loud noise in an audition room," I say to them, "When you feel your arm starting to drop, just swing past your legs."

Pete: Nice. Nice. Wait, this fits.

Jen: Yes, that's what I'm saying. Here's one more from the acting world: Sometimes at the end of an audition, a person will finish singing. You know, I do mostly musicals. So a person will finish singing, and then just out of habit, though, say, "Thank you to the auditors," and I'm like, "Ah, please don't be the first person in the room to say, 'Thank you.' That ends your audition." So instead of telling them, "Never say thank you," I say, "If you feel, 'Thank you,' coming out, just turn to the person who was playing the piano and thank them."

Pete: Nice, nice.

Jen: So, it's like a little habit adjustment instead of a habit breaking.

Pete: I love that. Yes, it's the same thing. It's like you keep the habit, you change the scope. In my context, I said, "Reduce the scope," but I think what you've done is like, you just changed the scope slightly.

Jen: Right. And your goal is to bring the habit back to its full magnification. And my goal with those acting examples is to actually keep reducing it, reducing it, reducing it until it goes away.

Pete: Totally. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, I love that example. I love that example.

Jen: Okay, can I offer something that I'm going through right now that maybe you can help me with?

Pete: Please. Please. I feel like I'm probably better at helping you than myself, so please.

Jen: So, I was on such a great roll of working out in the mornings. And then, I sort of like broke the habit. The habit like dwindled. And then, it just died. And this is the thing I'm trying to add back in the morning. But the weather here in New York is starting to improve, so I have found myself justifying not going back to my online workout classes because in just a couple of days, I could start running again. So, I've like promised myself a habit in the future...

Pete: Nice.

Jen: ...in order to get out of it today.

Pete: Oh, once again, I have no idea what you're talking about, no experience ever doing something like that. Yeah, the old, "If this, then that." Like, "I'll wait until the conditions are perfect, and then I'll get into that."

Jen: That's right.

Pete: That's funny. So I guess if we think about this idea of like, okay, starting the habit but reducing the scope. So it sounds like that part of the end goal is like running an hour in New York on a sunny summer's day, something like that.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: I guess the question is like, "What's the reduced scope version of that, that allows you to start building the habit of exercising again? Is it like, do ten burpees in the morning before I have a shower," or something like that. Like, what is that version of it?

Jen: Well, if I'm looking at this through the James Clear lens, the first thing would be tonight, put out my running shoes.

Pete: Right. Yeah.

Jen: Tomorrow, put them on my feet.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: The third day, walk outside. Then, walk right back in.

Pete: Right. Like, walk 100 meters.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: It's so funny, because the other thing that I've noticed with this idea that...I think he talks about this too. So you reduce the scope, which helps you start. But often once you've started, you actually then re-extend the scope, or at least I do. So I'm like, I mentally just reduce the scope to, "Oh, I just need to write a blog post that shares one question." And I do this quite a bit. I'm like, "Here's a question I've been thinking about." And I'm like, I reduce the scope. I write that, and I start writing, and I'm like, "Oh, actually, I have like a whole other blog post that I think I want to write." And then, I'll start writing that whole thing. Or, I'll do a five-minute meditation. And then like, after like five minutes, the voice might come back in, and I'm like, "You know what? I want to do another one. Like, I'm on a roll here." And I feel like, in your example, I can imagine where you're like, "I'll just go for a five-minute run." But then, you're like out there running, and you're like, "It's beautiful. I'm going to run for half an hour. This is great."

Jen: Absolutely. I actually know that that's exactly what's going to happen, because that's what happens to me.

Pete: Right. And then, of course, in summer...soon, in a few months time, we're going to get another episode about Jen's latest running metaphor, which I'm very excited about.

Jen: Which, I'm so excited about. I can't wait. Get me running again. You know, once upon a time, when I was doing my blog every week...which I don't feel as guilty about missing as you do, but I have been preparing to relaunch it, so stay tuned. But I wrote this blog post called Half-Written Blog Post, where I basically just share all of the starts and the stops of the blog post, and then just hit publish.

Pete: Nice.

Jen: I'll put it in the Box O' Goodies, because it's kind of funny.

Pete: Please do. My takeaway from that, if I was to speak to myself, I would recognize that it's the starting that's the hardest part.

Jen: Yes.

Pete: So, "Reduce the scope, maintain the habit," helps me just remove the mental baggage of starting. It's like, "Oh, thirty seconds, or one minute or two minutes, or one question blog posts, like, that's so much less overwhelming." I can do that, which helps me start. And then once I start, the hardest part has been taken care of, and the momentum comes, and sort of things take over. Which is maybe an obvious thing to say, but I just, like you said, it's the gift that keeps on giving, that book.

Jen: Listeners, if you have not read Atomic Habits by James Clear, I'm telling you, "Run. Don't walk." Huh, how ironic. "Run. Put on your running shoes and run to get a copy." It's just such a treasure trove. And even though you know the first time you read it, you'll probably read it from cover to cover. It's a great one to just pick up and open to a random page, and remind yourself of a little nugget of wisdom.

Pete: Yeah. I mean, gosh, how many examples of this can we think about? Like fifteen minutes ago, you said to me, "Hey Pete, have you got an idea for a podcast?" And I said, "I've got maybe like a thirty second idea." And I agonized over how to start this podcast.

Jen: Yep.

Pete: And then eventually, you, I think, were like, "You know what? We just need to start, and like let our brains take over." Because starting is the hardest part. And lo and behold...

Jen: So true.

Pete: ...we start talking, we start sharing, we have ideas, we have questions, and eventually we can turn this into an episode. So it's just like, these lessons are painfully right in front of our eyes, everywhere I look.

Jen: I'm sure I have shared this so many times on this podcast, but I have a client, Nathaniel Sullivan...he comes to anything that you and I do.

Pete: I love Nathaniel.

Jen: So brilliant. And he's got such a gorgeous brain. I just want to get inside that brain and see how it works. And we were talking about cataloging accomplishments, like things that you've done really well, and just making a list of them so you could see what you've done. And then, he added this step where he puts, "...so that," after it. So, you know, I do that on my goals, on my to-do list, but he does this on the back end. So like, "I restarted my blog practice, so that...," and then you fill in the blank. And I could see how, when you're trying to revive a broken habit, getting back to the, "...so that," of why the habit was useful in the first place could help motivate. So like, with the running, every year that I run, it does feel like such an accomplishment that I spend all this time outside running. And then, I break the habit when it gets cold...and it's like so hard to revive it when it starts getting warmer. But I can look at that, when the habit was really solid, as an accomplishment, and say, "Okay. I ran every single day for four months, so that I could feel good about myself. I could enjoy the sunshine, so that I could be the healthiest version of myself, so that I can experience good brain-flooding chemicals first thing in the morning, or so I can give myself a place to think." You know, like any number of things that it provided in the past, I can just remind myself of in the present...

Pete: Love that.

Jen: ...so that I'll do it in the future.

Pete: Yeah, "...so that." That's so good. And it makes me think of the idea of like, "...if I keep the habit and reduce the scope, so that I can get back into the habit in the first place."

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Or, "I can build momentum on that habit." You know? Not only is the, "...so that," within building the habit up itself, but the, "...so that," is like actually in this idea of reducing the scope and keeping the habit.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Thank you, Nathaniel.

Jen: It almost feels like we have to commit to doing a follow-up episode at some point, to see how our habit rebuilding went, and if there were any additional strategies or tools that we used to get ourselves back on track.

Pete: Yeah, I feel that that is a good point. Because, I often say this when I'm running leadership development workshops with leaders and corporates and executives, and I'll say, "You know, it's all good and well for us to sit here and have this great conversation." For us, it's for twenty minutes. For them, it's often for two hours or for half a day. "But unless we put any of this into action, what's the point?"

Jen: Right. Exactly.

Pete: So yes, I commit to putting this in to action. I commit to reducing the scope and building back up the habits. And I commit to reporting back on anything I learn, with you and with our listeners.

Jen: Alright, and I am committing to the same. I'm going to report back on rebuilding my exercise habit. And I mentioned a little bit earlier, I'm about to start publishing my blog again, so I will report on how I was able to make that happen. Future self, I hope you're listening.

Pete: I can't wait for my future self to listen back and go, "God dammit, Jen. Damn it, past Jen." Alright, so we're committing to reducing the scope and keeping the habit. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.