The Caring Catalyst

Who Cares - What Matters

NATIONAL QUITTERS DAY

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L            A            S           T

Friday, JANUARY 12, 2024 was
NATIONAL QUITTERS DAY.          .         .
It’s always the second Friday in January
and yes.         .        .
just in case you missed celebrating
LAST FRIDAY
(I gave you 5 extra days, just in case)
No WORRIES–
Monday, January 15  was
NATIONAL DITCH NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION DAY

.               .               .uhhhh, most likely you might have missed
THAT DAY, too
b          u          t

 JAMIE DUCHARME a journalist for TIME MAGAZINE brings up an interesting thought that a good many of us will have already done
T       H       U       N       K
(and most likely have already acted on)
If your New Year’s resolution is already in the rearview mirror, you’re not alone: Research has shown that about 30% of resolution-makers give up on their goal before they even reach the two-week mark. But just because you’ve already slacked on your new diet, exercise plan or organization scheme doesn’t mean you’ll never succeed, says John Norcross, a professor of psychology at the University of Scranton and an expert in behavior change and resolutions.

“Early slips do not predict failure,” says Norcross, who also authored the study about resolutions. “In fact, many ultimately successful resolvers report—even as they experience them—that the early slips strengthen their resolutions.”
ARE YOU ONE OF THE QUITTERS
ARE YOU ONE OF THE DITCHERS

Lot of questions.       .       .

especially when it surrounds

R E S O L U T I O N S.           .          .

DO   YOU

Make   T H E M

Keep   T H E M

Break  T H  E  M

.          .          .Uhhhhhhhhhh just like everything else.          .          .

There’s a SCIENCE

To Resolutions

and Most Definitely why they just don’t work.          .          .

GOOD  NEWS ?

Only If there’s another alternative.          .          .

one  that
T H E   S T U D I E S

tell us are much more effective:

H                 A                 B                 I                  T                 S

How many New Year’s resolutions have you made in your life? How many have you successfully accomplished? The estimate is that less than 10% of New Year’s resolutions are actually achieved so says the good Psychology Professor John C. Norcross, Ph.D.). There’s a lot of homespun folksy advice out there this time of year about how to make sure you reach your New Year’s goals, but I thought I’d share the actual science of how to change behavior.

There’s two main lines of brain and behavior science that influence New Year’s resolutions: The science of habits and the science of self-stories.

Let’s start with the science of habits

A lot of New Year’s resolutions have to do with making new habits or changing existing ones. If your resolutions are around things like eating healthier, exercising more, drinkingless, quitting smoking, texting less, spending more time “unplugged” or any number of other “automatic” behaviors then we are talking about changing existing habits or making new habits. Habits are automatic, “conditioned” responses. You get up in the morning and stop at Starbucks for a pastry and a latte. You go home at the end of work and plop down in front of the TV.  Here’s what you need to know about the science of changing existing habits or making new ones:

  • Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not hard to change habits IF you do so based on science.
  • To change a new habit you essentially have to create a new one, so whether you are changing an existing habit or creating a new one, the “scientific” method for doing so is the same.
  • You have already created literally HUNDREDS of habits that you have now, and you don’t even remember how they got started, so creating habits can’t be that hard or you wouldn’t have so many of them!

To create a new habit you have to follow these three steps (based on B.J. Fogg and Charles Duhigg)

  1. You MUST pick a small action. “Get more exercise” is not small. “Eat healthier” is not small. This is a big reason why New Year’s resolutions don’t work. If it’s a habit and you want a new one it MUST be something really small. For example, instead of “Get more exercise” choose “Walk 1/3 more than I usually do” or “Take the stairs each morning to get to my office, not the elevator”, or “Have a smoothie every morning with kale in it”. These are relatively small actions.
  2. You MUST attach the new action to a previous habit. Figure out a habit you already have that is well established, for example, if you already go for a brisk walk 3 times a week, then adding on 10 more minutes to the existing walk connects the new habit to an existing one. The existing habit “Go for walk” now becomes the “cue” for the new habit: “Walk 10 more minutes.” Your new “stimulus-response” is Go For Walk (Stimulus) followed by “Add 10 minutes.” Your existing habit of “walk through door at office” can now become the “cue” or stimulus for the new habit of “walk up a flight of stairs.” Your existing habit of “Walk into the kitchen in the morning” can now be the stimulus for the new habit of “Make a kale smoothie.”
  3. You MUST make the new action EASY to do for at least the first week. Because you are trying to establish a conditioned response, you need to practice the new habit from the existing stimulus from 3 to 7 times before it will “stick” on its own. To help you through this 3 to 7 times phase make it as EASY as possible. Write a note and stick it in your walking shoe that says “Total time today for walk is 30 minutes”. Write a note and put it where you put your keys that says: “Today use the stairs.” Put the kale in the blender and have all your smoothie ingredients ready to go in one spot in the refrigerator

E                  A                    S                    Y

If you take these three steps and you practice them 3 to 7 days in a row your new habit will be established.

Now let’s tackle the science of self-stories

The best (and some would say the only) way to get a large and long-term behavior change, is by changing your self-story.

Everyone has stories about themselves that drive their behavior. You have an idea of who you are and what’s important to you. Essentially you have a “story” operating about yourself at all times. These self-stories have a powerful influence on decisions and actions.

Whether you realize it or not, you make decisions based on staying true to your self-stories. Most of this decision-making based on self-stories happens unconsciously. You strive to be consistent. You want to make decisions that match your idea of who you are. When you make a decision or act in a way that fits your self-story, the decision or action will feel right. When you make a decision or act in a way that doesn’t fit your self-story you feel uncomfortable.

If you want to change your behavior and make the change stick, then you need to first change the underlying self-story that is operating. Do you want to be more optimistic? Then you’d better have an operating self-story that says you are an optimistic person. Want to join your local community band? Then you’ll need a self-story where you are outgoing and musical.

In his book, Redirect, Timothy Wilson describes a large body of impressive research of how stories can change behavior long-term. One technique he has researched is “story-editing”:

  1. Write out your existing story. Pay special attention to anything about the story that goes AGAINST the new resolution you want to adopt. So if your goal is to learn how to unplug and be less stressed, then write out a story that is realistic, that shows that it’s hard for you to de-stress, that  you tend to get overly involved in dramas at home or at work.
  2. Now re-write the story — create a new self-story. Tell the story of the new way of being. Tell the story of the person who appreciates life, and takes time to take care of him/her-self.

The technique of story-editing is so simple that it doesn’t seem possible that it can result in such deep and profound change. But the research shows that one re-written self-story can make all the difference.

I’ve tried both of these techniques — creating new habits using the 3-step method, and creating a new self-story. The research shows they work, and my own experience shows they work.

Give it a try. What have you got to lose? This year use science to create and stick to your New Year’s resolutions.

What do you think? What has worked for you in keeping your resolutions?

References

Timothy Wilson’s book, Redirect

Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit:

Thinking what I THUNK

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O      V      E      R      T      H      I      N      K      I      N      G

often    leads   to

E      X      C      E      S      S      I      V      E

if   not   in   fact

O        B        S        E        S        S        I        V        E

OVER  FEELING.          .         .

you  think.          .          .          ?

Have you ever gotten THAT dreaded piece of mail

that tells you that you are to report to the Courthouse on such and such a date

OR  ELSE.          .          .

When I first received it I made the call and begged off because of an already planned/paid for short vacation after Easter.          .          .

They told me that was completely understandable and that they would re-schedule me and I got yet another notice to appear

OR  ELSE.          .          .

So fearing/respecting the

OR  ELSE

I appeared this past Monday and after more than half of a day of reading a most awesome book

(YES, YOU  SHOULD  ABSOLUTELY  READ  THIS  BOOK)

My name was called

(very poorly mispronounced)

I went up to the Courtroom with about 25 others and actually sat in the Juror’s box

(I was Proud Juror #6)

for a day and a half

and answered questions from the Judge, The Prosecutor and the Defense Lawyer, I thought quite thoroughly, intelligently and sincerely.  I even added complimentary comments when the entire group was posed a question or a ‘what-if’ kind of scenario.  .  .

I had mixed feelings about even being a Juror just because of the time element and actually going to work at a job I like, enjoy, and hopefully enhance.          .          .

But now in the Box and hearing the compliments of how being a Juror was only second to serving our country in the military, and even further being complimented when I informed the Court that if this case were to carry over into the next week, I had made arrangements to change a previous speaking engagement.

I was asked by the Prosecutor about this blog, THE CARING CATALYST and what I was attempting to do by writing it three times a week and when I responded to hopefully make us not only more aware that we are a Caring/Compassionate lot but also how to become even more so for the good of others and even our own individual selves; he told me what a great venture and wished me luck.          .          .

And then at approximately 4:05 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon after dismissing at least 10 other jurors and questioning 10 others, he paused and said,

“Mr. Behrens, we appreciate you service and respectfully dismiss you at this time.”

WAIT.          .          .

WHAT.        .          .

You’re DISMISSING me.          .          .

M E?

I almost blurted, “There must be some mistake.         .          .”

Instead, I mumbled out, “The honor was mine, thank you for the opportunity.”

The Judge let me out his little back door, shook my hand, and expressed his personal thanks for being in a position where I might have taken care of some of his family and personal friends as a Chaplain at Hospice of the Western Reserve.     .     .

and then, like that, I was riding down the Elevator of shame back to the Juror’s Pool to be chosen and possibly rejected yet again, when I was met by a young man with a paisley bow tie who, too, thanked me for my time and let me know that my services would no longer be needed the rest of the week as he handed me my Juror’s Diploma

O        U        C        H

Dissed twice in a matter of five minutes.          .          .

I was reeling as I took the walk to my $13.00 dollar a day parking lot where my car even seemed to hide from me in shame.            .          .

How.     .     .HOW COULD THIS BE?

Who.    .      .WHO  WOULDN’T  WANT  ME  ON  THEIR  JURY?

Was I too polite

Wat I overdressed (just wearing business casual while others jean and sweat pants it)

Was I too compassionate

Was I too empathetic

Was I too sympathetic 

Was I too Caring

Was I too knowledgeable

Was I too opinionated 

Was I too impartial

Was I too biased

Was I too unfeeling

Was I too INTO IT

WHAT.          .          .WHAT.          .          .W     H     A     T  ?

It’s true.          .          .

I didn’t want to go;

I didn’t want to be there

even as I drove there Monday morning

but when I was in that Box, I was

INVESTED

and then

DIS vested

I didn’t sleep good Tuesday night

I ranted to my poor co-workers on Wednesday at David Simpson Hospice House

and then after our long team meeting and Rounds

I do what I do best:

Visited Patients

and IT

shouted to me 

this is why I am here

and not THERE

(THEN)

She asked me, “why am I afraid to die if I believe I’m going to heaven?”

He asked me, “if we all have to die, why can’t we all just die peacefully in our sleep without any struggles or terrible diseases.”

She asked me, “Will I see the face of Jesus?”

And it wasn’t so much what I said so much as that I was just

THERE

not at the Courthouse in a Juror’s box or a Juror’s waiting room but

T        H        E        R       E

not just with random patients, but

T            H            E            S            E

particular patients 

to hear the questions and to not blink,not turn away, not judge, not decide, not to hypothesize, suppose, ruminate or theologize or ‘there, there‘ them.       .       .

but just to be there

holding space.       .       .

I can’t think

what I think

until I think

As I write this blog,

two days after being DISMISSED

I can think what I THUNK:

It’s a lie:

It’s not that it’s darkest before the dawn

Charlie Brown’s Teacher talk Wha wha wha whaaaaaaaing that brings us

peace

meaning

resolution

understanding

hope

so much as the fact that

there’s   never   been   a   dark   night  (of the Soul)

that’s   lasted   forever;

now.          .          .

that’s thinking

what’s been THUNK

but needs RE-THUNKING

t      h      a      t

and the message that coursed itself through

T      H      A      T

book, ORDINARY GRACES

which quoted Aeschylus in the beginning and then explained its meaning throughout the novel.       .       .

It’s a quote that is also on the tombstone of Robert F. Kennedy:

“AND  EVEN  IN  OUR  SLEEP  PAIN  THAT  CANNOT  FORGET, FALLS  DROP  BY  DROP  UPON  THE  HEART,  AND  IN  OUR  OWN  DESPITE,  AGAINST  OUR  WILL, COMES  WISDOM  TO  US  BY  THE AWFUL  GRACE  OF  GOD,”

Y  e  a  h.          .          .

I’m thinking

what’s been thunk

needs re-thunking.          .           .

you?

Professional Speaker, Author, Assurance Man