It is fast and emotional, responsible for quick decisions. The toddler is unaware of the future and only cares about the present moment.Based on that, it chooses actions that are comfortable and convenient, even if they are wrong.
If you are like most people, there is a gap between the person you are and the person you wish to be. There are little things you think you should do and big things you ought to achieve, such as working out regularly, eating healthily, learning a language, working on your novel, reading more or simply actually doing your hobby instead of browsing reddit. But it sometimes seems that to achieve your goals, you have to become a different person - someone who is consistent, puts in more effort, has discipline and willpower. Maybe you have tried your hardest to be like that, and it worked for a while, until you find yourself slipping back into your old ways. In the end, you always seem to fail, and with every failed attempt, you become more and more frustrated and annoyed with yourself.
If you believe the “success and hustle” internet, it is all your own fault: if you don’t succeed, you just didn’t want it enough and the failure is all you. But change is actually hard, and as with most things in life, understanding why makes things easier. Imagine your brain as a lush and dense jungle. Moving through it, to make a decision to do something, is like moving through an actual jungle: it is hard and it costs energy. Your brain hates expending energy, so it came up with a trick: all your actions and behaviors leave paths in the jungle of your brain. As you start doing something, you trample down some plants and make rough, improvised trails through the undergrowth. The more often you do the thing, the more pronounced the trail becomes, eventually turning into a path, then a street and finally a highway. The more pronounced your brain highways, the more you get used to their comfort, so we continue to use them, which means we tend to do what we have always done.
To understand how those highways are built, we need to distinguish between two things: routines and habits. A routine is a sequence of actions that you carry out the same way every time because they’ve worked out well for you. For example, you get the same ingredients for your favorite dish and cook them in a certain order, because you like the taste of the result. Or before going to bed you set an alarm at 6:30 because this is when you want to get up. Imagine routines executed by a wise planner. It is slow and analytical, responsible for strategizing and mental calculations. The planner is aware of the future and carefully considers what kind of result you want. Based on that, it chooses actions to achieve specific outcomes, even if they are uncomfortable, like taking a shower after getting up. Routines can eventually turn into habits, which feel much easier because they are basically a sequence of actions carried out without thinking about them. You have done them so often before that your brain considers them rewarding and a great response to a situation. So a habit can feel like you’re on autopilot. You don’t have to convince yourself to do something that’s a habit - you just do it.
The important thing about habits is that they are set in motion by triggers, context cues that can be single things or entire situations, that give your brain the signal to start the behavior or action. You already have a lot of triggers in your life: like when you see your phone, you almost always unlock the screen. Or you reach for the seat belt when you sit in a car. Or when you buy your coffee before work, you also get a cookie, even though you aren’t actually hungry. Habits are executed by an impulsive toddler. It is fast and emotional, responsible for quick decisions. The toddler is unaware of the future and only cares about the present moment. Based on that, it chooses actions that are comfortable and convenient, even if they are wrong. Responding to immediate desires without considering any longer-term goals is what the toddler in our brain does. When it notices a trigger, it steers us to take the easy road that leads to a familiar, rewarding result. For example, if we get coffee, the toddler also wants the cookie just because that’s what we do every morning. This rewarding feeling is also how most of our bad habits started.
We can use these energy-saving mechanisms to make change easier by creating new routines and turning them into habits. To do so, we must break down our goal into clear, separate actions that are small and manageable. We must also create a trigger that will set off the action automatically. For example, if we want to work out to be fitter, we can start by doing ten squats every morning with our exercise gear on, at the same place and time.
By repeating these actions regularly, they will eventually change from a routine to a habit. To make our new action easier to repeat and more likely to be picked up by the toddler, we should try to make it pleasurable by making the action itself more enjoyable. Like only listening to your favorite podcast while working out, or chipping away at your taxes while you wait for civilization to load the next round, figuring out what works for you is frustratingly simple, like most things you can do to make your life better. How long it takes for a new habit to kick off automatically by its trigger varies widely; it depends on the behavior you are trying to get used to, what kind of person you are, your stress levels and many more things. It takes anything between 15 and 250 days. Starting is the easy part, especially in the first week or two, but continuing to do it every day is the hard part. However, it does get easier as you keep going. There are no silver bullets for change, but the science of habits is a reminder that it is possible, no matter how old or young you are. Even if you only end up doing a little more good stuff or a few new things, that’s still a success. Being a little bit more healthy or knowledgeable is a million times better than being unhappy about a thing and changing nothing. In the end, change is a direction, not a destination.
To help you on your personal change journey, Kurzgesagt created a habit journal with a tutorial part which guides you through the hardest part of the process step by step. You’ll get helpful pointers, reflect on your progress and how you could make things easier for yourself. The journal is cloth-bound, with an embossed hardcover and printed on high-quality paper, with lots of beautiful illustrations. Getting things from their shop is the best way to support Kurzgesagt and what they try to do.