The Virtuous Cycle: How New Behaviors Stick
Part 5 of 5.
After all the introspection, strategic planning and concerted effort required to successfully alter entrenched habits, sustaining positive changes long-term poses another challenge. However, research reveals once our new intentional behaviors reach a tipping point through consistency, a beneficial snowball effect kicks in.
The heavy lifting fades replaced by the behaviors themselves becoming self-reinforcing thanks to both our neurological programming and environments now built to maintain them without excessive cognitive load. Our new habits evolve into aspects of our identity passively supported by surrounding factors. Let’s explore how.
Automaticity Takes Over
As discussed in previous articles, the human brain evolved primarily to conserve calories. So when we repeatedly choose certain actions, increased efficiency gets developed by encoding those behaviors into automatic subconscious processes requiring less energy expenditure.
This “automaticity” whereby frequently repeated tasks become habituated into intrinsic unconscious effort explains everything from professional athletes honing world-class reflexes to experienced drivers navigating rush hour traffic without remembering the complex series of split-second decisions made. Through repetition, the basal ganglia encodes our routines for us.
The magic happens as new intentional habits sustained long enough also pass into this realm of automaticity. Initially requiring focused conscious application, intentionally practiced behaviors become increasing subconscious, instinctive and self-actuating over time. Our healthy new patterns gather their own momentum rooted deep into our operating system.
Reducing Cognitive Load
With positive habits now running smoothly on autopilot rather than still demanding deliberation or willpower, our daily mental bandwidth expands significantly. Activities still requiring conscious monitoring and decisions benefit from this freed up cognition. Our executive functioning sharps rather than always exerting psychic energy battling old unhealthy patterns.
By escaping the exhausting force of will chore that initiating habit change requires, we unlock capacity to make broader lifestyle optimizations compounding total life quality gains. The benefits extend beyond just the direct improvements from added healthy patterns alone. Still having mental space for focused presence enhances everything.
With sufficient repetition then, newly chosen behaviors transition from burdensome cognitive tasks into effortless aspects of who we are. We created the healthy new norms as routine amenities rather than chores stealing bandwidth. The real reward unfolds internally through removing tiresome exertion taxes once levied upon our consciousness.
Identity Assumption
Another self-reinforcing dynamic assisting newly ingrained habits has to do with internalized self-perception. Initially, adopting foreign positive behaviors feels fake — like trying to wear clothes that don’t quite fit right. We identify more as an imposter struggling to act counter to our programming rather than owning the actions as genuine expressions of self.
However, as the intentional habits cement through automaticity, our self-talk and assumptions around identity shift from framing ourselves as challengers of old patterns to established residents of the new modes of being. We begin to view this version of ourselves as authentic rather than some mask we put on.
This psychological integration serves to powerfully lock in behavioral changes we work hard to ingrain early on. No longer feeling out of integrity with modified actions removes temptation towards backslides. External monitoring becomes less necessary when our intrinsic perceptions align to support evolved habits. We grow truly comfortable in our own skin.
Environmental Reinforcement
As our new habits snowball into automatic integrated aspects of identity through repeated practice, related environmental realignments transpire collaboratively to lock in changes. The conditions supporting old detrimental patterns reorganize to empower continuation of emergent desirable ones.
For instance, altered social circles, restructured work policies, unique market offerings and even media inputs shift to nourish the new growth directions through passive support. Rather than having to fight inertia and friction from uncooperative surroundings like before, tailored ecosystems nourish our momentum.
What once took so much conscious effort and energy now flows freely and easily thanks to adapted environments adding momentum rather than resisting progress. New cues passively stimulate continuation while old habit triggers fade gracefully into the background without internal temptation towards them. We engineered holistic cooperative conditions where none existed prior.
Self-Sustaining Contentment
As the final wonderful dynamic reinforcing stabilized habit change, the new patterns ultimately become intrinsically rewarding. The desperate seeking of superficial external validations we originally required to stick to uncomfortable regimens fades replaced by practice itself fostering meaning, pride and contentment.
Rather than depending upon gamified goal checkpoints or tangible self-bribes to nurse tentative new behaviors within adversarial settings, our evolved landscapes now nourish intrinsically enjoying the practices for their own sake.
Through repetition and integration, we transformed behaviors from bitter means to sweet ends. No longer fixating anticipated ends or tangible rewards needed previously, cementing the new habits proves the real prize through automaticized contentment within supportive environments realizing our best selves. We’ve installed new operating software where clunky outdated programming lagged us before.
Pulling it All Together
When seeking meaningful lifestyle shifts, few things deliver more reliably than addressing foundational habit and behavior dynamics determining our trajectories. The inertia of automated programming initially seems stubbornly overwhelming. However, by leveraging and exposing root enablers allowing old patterns to persist, transformation unlocks.
Through research-backed habit disruption methods, establishing tiny gains consistently lays neural wiring enabling alternative behavioral pathways. Compounded progressively, the superficial effort required fades as executions becomes subconscious instinct rather than burdensome chore.
Simultaneously, proof of progress reshapes self-perception from contrived roles back into authentic identity integration. New practices feel like home rather than hotel stays. Gradually, environmental conditions conspire to assist continuation of new trajectories through social and structural support.
With roots firmly planted into the psyche and surroundings, desirable habits begin self-perpetuation. The intrinsic pleasure of aligned behaviors within nurturing contexts removes any allure towards past programming. We’ve installed an upgraded operating system carrying us contentedly towards progress once elusive. The new we engineered became the real we through time and tiny gains compounding into massive global shifts. We manufactured our own fate inch by inch.
Bryant D Nielson is the author of the book:
Lengthen Your Stride: The Power of 1% Improvements to Transform Your Life, Relationships, Career, Business, and the World
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