I woke this morning feeling better than usual. I was not surprised. I had avoided three things I do at night that I know are partly responsible for the way I feel most mornings: tired, achy, anxious, and a wee bit grouchy.
I realized that if I could make the pattern of last night’s behaviors instinctual, it would benefit me greatly.
But how can I do that?
That word instinctual gives me a thought…
It seems irrefutable to say that the most efficient and probable way to acquire good habits is to transform bad behaviors that are almost instinctual into good behaviors that are equally instinctive.
To do that one must see behavior change as something that has to happen in all three parts of the brain: the rational brain, the emotional brain, and the instinctual brain.
Here’s how I think that would work:
In your rational brain…
* You identify the behavior that you want to change.
* You then identify a behavior or series of behaviors that would eliminate the bad one.
* You make a conscious effort to replace the bad behavior with the desired behavior(s) – and you make a conscious effort to recognize the way it makes you feel when you do.
In your emotional brain…
Training your emotional brain is not something you can do in a day or a week. Your emotional brain has been associating the bad behavior with feeling good for a long time. What you want to do now is get your emotional brain to associate the desired behavior(s) with feeling good – and that takes a lot of repetition and a lot of time.
Practicing the desired behavior(s) over and over again will eventually change your emotional brain from one that seeks the gratifications of the bad behavior into one that seeks the gratifications of the desired behavior(s). And when you do it long enough, the desired behavior(s) will become as instinctual as the bad behavior once was.
