The secret of change: the generation of new habits.

Several guidelines to learn how to adopt new ways of living.

The new school year arrives, we start a new job, we decide to start a healthier life going to the gym... All these situations are very common for most people, and as one of the great Greek philosophers called Heraclitus said: "Everything flows; Everything changes; Nothing remains". Day by day we are faced with decisions that can change the meaning and direction of our lives and only our motivation towards them can make us follow them.

One of the keys to achieve the goals we set for ourselves is to the generation of new habits.. Creating routines that facilitate and guide us on the road to our destination is fundamental. Thanks to these habits we develop new neural circuits and behavioral patterns that, if well consolidated, will accompany us for the rest of our lives.

Learning a new habit not only depends on the repetition of the same, but it is closely related to the individual capacity to know how to manage our emotions. Nowadays, talking about emotional intelligence is nothing new, but there is a term known as delayed gratification that may go unnoticed.

When we decide to get involved and commit ourselves with the accomplishment of a task we put in motion diverse mechanisms among which is the emotional control.

An example: the delay of gratification

Several studies, such as the popular Marshmallow Test, have shown that those people who are able to delay their rewards over time obtain benefits in different facets of their lives. in different facets of their lives. Some of these experiments took as a sample children of infantile age who were left in a room with a very appetizing candy and were proposed that if they did not eat it, they could obtain a higher number on the experimenter's return.

The results of these tests were that those who waited the longest, when re-evaluated as adolescents and adults, demonstrated a remarkable series of advantages over their peers.

As adolescents, they had higher scores in social competence, self-confidence and higher self-esteem, and were rated by their parents as more mature, better able to cope with stress, more likely to plan for the future, and more rational. As adults, they were less likely to have problems with drugs or other addictive behaviors, get divorced, or become overweight.

Adopting new habits

Beyond knowing how to control our reward cravings, there are some keys that can help us introduce new habits into our lives..

1. The 21-day rule

One of the pioneers in talking about the 21-day rule for creating new habits was Dr. Maxwell Maltz. was Dr. Maxwell Maltz. A renowned surgeon, he realized that in cases such as cosmetic surgery or limb amputation, it took people 21 days to generate a new image of themselves.

Thanks to these discoveries, we take as a reference this temporary period for the consolidation of new habits, that is to say, it is necessary to repeat the new behaviors during 21 days so that they become automatic and consolidated.

2. Associate it to our value chain

If the new habit we want to include in our daily life is very closely related to our values and/or principles, it will have an extra importance that will encourage its realization. This can be explained through its link to our intrinsic motivation, our proactive desire to do something.our wanting to do something in a proactive way.

3. Meditation can help us

One of the ways we human beings learn is through visualization. It consists of imagining ourselves carrying out the tasks or objectives to be achieved. Through this process, our mind is acquiring some of the necessary skills and can be a great support to the physical and can be a great support to the physical realization of the same.

On the other hand, techniques such as meditation can encourage the development and consolidation of new habits. It has been proven that through them, significant changes are produced in the brain structure related to well-being and happiness.

4. Perseverance and commitment

Both are fundamental to achieve a new habit.

At the beginning it can be complicated, so you can manage your attention and focus on the benefits that you will obtain in the medium-long term.. It is important that the new habits you set for yourself are achievable, positive and that you can measure your progress towards them.

We learn something new every day, it is not a matter of unlearning those routines that bother us or that we want to change, but to consider other alternatives that promote our personal development and provide us with well-being.

In UPAD Psychology and Coaching we help people in the generation and acquisition of new habits that will allow the client to achieve their goals obtaining high levels of satisfaction and well-being.