The unconscious pursuit of excellence

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
~Aristotle”

In the previous newsletters, I’ve written about figuring out what your goals in life are.

Some goals are a one-time events, such as buying a house.
Other goals are multiple time events, such as qualifying for multiple marathons.
Other goals are process goals, such as moving your body daily via walking, running, or some form of exercise.

But one thing these goals all have in common is that they all require some kind of consistency in order to achieve that goal in the first place.

You have to consistently save for years in order to have enough down payment for a house.
You have to consistently run to qualify for multiple marathons.
You have to consistently move your body to, well, move your body daily!

One path to achieving excellences is via consistency in the pursuit of your goals through habits.

What are habits?

First, let’s clarify the difference between “true habits” and “habitual behaviours”. In the vernacular, people use the term “habit” to mean both of these things. However, there are nuances of different types of behaviours. Think of habits as a subtype of behaviour.

(Check out the “Further reading” section at the end of this newsletter on Behaviour Wizard)

Some behaviours you really have to think about, focus hard, and force yourself to do it one time. Let’s use “giving birth” as an extreme example (I mean, you can argue that’s “automatic” because your body is trying to push out a baby, but I’m talking about how conscious or aware you are of this behaviour happening!)

Other behaviours you don’t even realize you did. If you drive a car, I’m sure you recall a time when you drove to work and had no idea how you even got there. You steering the car, changing gears, pressing the gas vs brake pedals, all these are individual behaviours, but you didn’t even have to think about each thing!

As you can see, behaviours land on an automatic/not automatic (or unconscious/conscious) spectrum (see image below).

(Image from the book Tiny Habits by Dr. BJ Fogg)

A true habit are fully or very close to being fully automatic (towards the right of the line below). Like the car driving example.

A habitual behaviour, on the other hand, still requires some thought to do it. For example, remembering to drink water throughout the day.

So any behaviour or action can become a habit, if it becomes fully or close to fully automatically or unconsciously executed.

In fact, according to Dr. Wendy Wood, a habits researcher:

What makes a behaviour a habit is “how you perform an action, not what the action is” (i.e., performing it automatically/unconsciously)
"We [know] what a habit wasn’t--an action that required intention and thought.”

Why does the automaticity/unconsciousness of habits matter?

There are two main benefits of getting a behaviour to become fully automatic/unconscious, or become a habit:

When a behaviour becomes automatic, you use less cognitive resources (attention, focus, etc.) on deciding on and executing that behaviour. Thus, you free up your cognitive resources to think about or do other things.
- Obama was a famous example of this with his decision to only wear blue or grey suits so that he can make one fewer decision, when he had more important decisions to make.
When a behaviour becomes fully automatic/unconscious, you don’t have to rely on your motivation, willpower, or your mood to take that action.
- According to Dr. Jonathan Fader, a sports psychologist, he finds that elite athletes "don’t wait for inspiration, [they] just start doing whatever it is [they need to] do. “Action is first, motivation second."

In other words, the more you can automate your habits, the more brain resource you free up, and the more you can use the extra brain power to solve more complex problems, create, or be more attuned to your loved ones. In this way, you can pursue excellence both unconsciously and consciously!

“True habits persist despite our intentions to do otherwise.
~Dr. Wendy Wood”

What does the science say about forming habits?

You only need 3 things for a behaviour to become a habit:

Reliable Prompt
Repetition
Reward

Let’s go into more detail of what each component means.

1. Reliable Prompt (or Cue or Context)

Your brain has to learn to associate a prompt (or a cue or a context in your environment) with a specific behaviour, for that behaviour to become a habit.
For example, seeing a bottle of wine, hearing the phone ring, or remembering something, these are all prompts for some specific, next behaviour to happen.
Think of it this way: every time A occurs (a prompt), you brain tries to decide and predict, what behaviour B should I do next?
If the brain has been learning that when A occurs, you do B, and the A—> B pathway and association becomes stronger in your brain.

2. Repetition

One of the ways for this A —> B association to become stronger is via repetition.
However, note that it’s not doing the behaviour B per se that makes something become a habit; a true habit will be an A—> B association, and you actually want to repeat the association.
For example, it’s not about a behaviour B of meditating at random times throughout the day (although if you’re doing it at all, that’s great!), it’s about always associating meditating (B) after some reliable prompt (A), such as after your first cup of tea in the morning.
This Tea (A) —> Meditate (B) association should be repeated for a behaviour to become a true habit.

3. Reward

This is probably the most misunderstood concept in habit formation.
The term “reward” in this case doesn’t mean things like some prize money at the end of a 30-day challenge. That is an incentive; there is a temporal delay between you doing the behaviour and the “good thing” the comes with it.
The term “reward” in the science of habit field is what’s rewarding for your brain. This is related to the dopamine pathway.
The term “reward” in the science of habit field is what’s rewarding for your brain. This is related to the dopamine pathway.
If your brain gets a dopamine boost when you do B after a prompt A, your brain will likely want to lock this A —> B association down because now it knows that doing B after A “feels rewarding”.
This happens easier when the behaviour in itself is rewarding, such as the feeling of calm after meditating, or that amazing taste in your mouth when you eat a donut (or in the addiction realm, the high one feels after snorting a line of cocaine).
This is not as easy when you are trying to, say, eat a broccoli instead. At least for me, I hate the taste of broccoli, so this will not be inherently rewarding for my brain.
(Note: There is a way to get around this that I teach people in my habit coaching program (currently closed)).

If it only takes 3 things for a habit to form, then why do so many people fail at keeping up with their new year resolution to engage in some kind of habit?

Find out in the next post 🤓

Today's Action:

If you’ve been receiving my earlier newsletters, I’ve talked about setting goals for yourself. Let’s think of that goal you set for yourself now.

If you’re new to the newsletter, you can think of any goal you want to achieve for yourself.

Today’s activity is for you to figure out what habits or habitual behaviours you can do daily that will take you one step or 1% closer to your goal each day.

For example, if your goal is to overcome your fear of speaking in public, and give a talk in front of 200 people, then your daily habit to start could be to say “hi” to a stranger each day.

Next, identify a reliable prompt (cue or context) that will help you activate this behaviour.

In the example, your prompt could be the first stranger you see in the day, i.e., once you are within earshot of the first stranger you see in the day, you must say hi to that person.

Reward this new behaviour.

With the example above, obviously if the stranger smiles and says hi back, that will be intrinsically rewarding to your brain because we humans are social creatures.
The danger is when you feel discouraged when they don’t say hi or smile back. So you have to find a way to still make your brain feel that this is a rewarding behaviour that you are doing despite the feedback you get.
Another example is where you only allow yourself to listen to your favourite podcast when you run on your treadmill. The podcast is intrinsically rewarding, so you pair that with the new habit you may not enjoy as much (i.e., running on the treadmill).

Try this out daily for the next 7 days

For habit nerds: the notion that "it takes 21 day for a habit to stick" is a myth! This varies widely depending on the type of habit, who you are, and how you (properly) execute the habit formation.

Then, check-in with yourself:

Continue if this is working for you
Stop if it’s not really getting you closer to your goal or
Start making it bigger to get you, say, 2% closer to your goal each day.

Feel free to share what your habit is with me or with your accountability partner!

As you can see, the formula to start and stop habits is simple but not always easy.

If you struggle with starting or stopping habits, check out my habit coaching program (closed).

Until next time, Transcenders!
~Pylin

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P.P.S. I’d love to hear from you! Let me know if you love a topic, don’t like a topic, want to hear about a certain topic. I’m all about learning from others and connecting! Email link below or pylin@drpylin.com

Today's Action:

Further Reading