By Victor Ochieng’
vochieng.90@gmail.com
Habits are repeated patterns of behaviour. In the distant past, a Greek philosopher called Aristotle said, “We become what we repeatedly do; excellence is not an act, but a habit.”
In both prosaic and poetic forms: When you plant a thought, you reap an action. When you plant an action, you reap a habit. When you plant a habit, you reap character. When you plant character, you reap destiny. Destiny is a matter of choice, not chance.
Students should choose to stick to stupendous study habits. They should know that nothing comes through a silver platter. Effort is required. It is bad to just sit like a rock. But it is good to click and ticks like a clock.
In a school set up, students who yearn to pass with flying colours should toil and moil. It all begins with a Positive Mental Attitude. There is need for having all useful tools. Every student must have well-written notes. It is good to build a strong reading culture. They should build their attention and concentration span. Time management is of supreme importance. Not forgetting the aspect of seeking to comprehend concepts. As they also focus on content, retention and exam strategies.
Some students do not perform well in school because they are prone to bad habits. They fail to unleash their best because of laziness; that is, getting tired before they do the job. Some are used to inaction, indecision and procrastination. While others are lost in bad habits like abuse and misuse of drugs. In the end, dismal performance becomes imminent.
Therefore, it is clear like crystal, that students, who want to evince excellence in any sphere of life, must understand the Science of Habits. Repeated pattern of behaviour plays a pivotal role in matters excellence. Those who want to shine as stars must be used to habits that are good and golden. By and large, a habit is caught. It is not taught.
Most psychological pundits argue that it takes 21 days to fully install a habit. Darren Hardy talks of 365 days in his well-worded book titled the Compound Effect. Robin Sharma in a book titled the 5:00 AM Club talks about the Habit Installation Protocol. In what he calls the 66 Day Minimum, he breaks down the installation of habits into three phases, each taking 22 days. There is the destruction, installation and integration.
The first stage is the hardest one because it entails re-writing the past pattern of the mind. At the destruction phase, there is obliteration of old ways of operation. There is re-writing of the past programmes of the heart and emotions.
This is in order, because even the space shuttle uses more fuel in the first 60 seconds after lift-off than what it uses over the entire orbit around the earth. It expends more fuel because it is incumbent upon it to overcome the powerful forces of gravity after take-off. It requires many gallons of fuel in order to vanquish those initial forces, and reach escape velocity. That has to be exigent and urgent.
After the destruction of the habits, and what you do not want is done, you will definitely move ahead into installation phase, where new neural pathways are formed, and the real installation begins. As you stick like a tick to your practice of making any fresh routine your normal way of being, you will arrive at the final, and the most wonderful stage – integration.
In the beautiful book titled Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about the Habit Loop or the Science of Habits. He posits: the process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps – cue, craving, response and reward.
The cue triggers a craving. In turn, it motivates a response. Then, it provides a reward. It sates and satiates a craving as it ultimately becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop – cue, craving, response, reward. It is these four strides that create automatic habits. Just like blinking the eye without dithering.
There is the cue. The cue triggers your brain to initiate a behaviour. The cue focuses on noticing the reward. The craving wants the reward. Response is obtaining the reward.
Maybe, we should not close this case of habits without suggesting a few ways of breaking bad behaviour. There is habit stacking, priming and designing the environment.
When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behaviour to your advantage. One of the best ways to drop a bad habit, is to pick a new good one. So, how do you build the new one? You identify a current habit you have, which you do on daily basis, then stack your new behaviour on top. This is what we call Habit Stacking. Connected to the Diderot Effect, coined from the French philosopher, Dennis Diderot (1713-1784).
Priming the environment refers to’re-setting the room’. This is not just to clean up the last action, but to prepare for the next one. Environmental Design means that you reorganise the environment completely to help you facilitate the new behaviour.
Lastly, daily dedication and devotion to means of grace, also known as spiritual disciplines, makes a Christian to grow and glow. It is what made the early church to gain spiritual power in those years of yore. In Acts 2:42, Dr. Luke writes: “They devoted themselves to apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer.”
In Acts 19:11, this medical practitioner who worked and walked with Jesus of Nazareth writes about the Bereans who were more noble in character than those in Thessalonica, for they received God’s message with more eagerness and examined the sacred scriptures on daily basis to ascertain whether what Apostle Paul of Tarsus said was true.
The writer is an editor, orator and author. He offers motivational talks and training services.
