Today the habit train continues chugging along and we are going to explore two questions you can ask yourself when you are trying to implement a new behavior or develop a new routine.
All aboard the habit train!
In my nutrition coaching program these are known as the “2 Crazy Questions” (actually it’s “4 Crazy Questions,” but we are going to stick with the first 2 today) and they can be especially useful for when you are feeling ambivalent about a certain change or have tried to make it happen in the past without long-term success.
Before we get to the actual questions, let’s set up a hypothetical scenario I hear a lot from clients, which goes something like this: “I would like to go to bed earlier but I also really like {insert activity that keeps them up late at night here}...”
A situation like this can be challenging because, as we learned last week, unless the value we place on the new behavior is greater than the value we place on the current behavior, change is going to be difficult.
And this is where the two crazy questions come in:
Question 1: What is GOOD about NOT changing? Or in other words, what is good about continuing the current behavior of staying up late at night?
Question 2: What is BAD about changing? What would you have to give up in order to make the change? In our hypothetical case, what do you lose by going to bed an hour earlier?
Brainstorming or even writing out a few answers to these questions can be helpful not only to get a better understanding of what exactly you are getting out of your current habit/routine, but also to help determine if you are ready, willing, and able to give up whatever would be necessary to put that change into motion.
Every human behavior is an attempt to solve a problem.
Sometimes our behavior solves the problem (if I’m hungry, I will go in search of food) and sometimes it does not (if I’m feeling lonely, I may find myself endlessly scrolling through Facebook).
By asking these 2 crazy questions you can clarify the problem you are trying to solve and how you are currently solving it, and then see if there may be a different or better solution you’d like to try.
I also happened to come across two quotes this week that relate nicely to this topic:
"Beneath every behavior is a feeling. And beneath every feeling is a need. And when we meet that need, rather than focus on the behavior, we begin to deal with the cause, and not the symptom." - Psychologist Ashleigh Warner
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed that isn’t faced.”
- James Baldwin
If you give these "2 Crazy Questions" a try, leave a comment and let me know what you discover!
And if you'd like some help taking what you learned and putting it into action, let's have a conversation: schedule your free consultation call or send me a note.
...for your free consultation call or visit https://calendly.com/meganfschall/consultation-call to get started!
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