How to Barter Better Habits
The art of negotiating with yourself
Have you ever thought you’d like to get a little more out of life? Or dreamed of adjusting the direction of the day-to-day you’ve settled into? Of course, we all have, right? And if you’re like me, you’ve probably considered adopting a new habit or two to get there.
The feeling of beginning new habits can be wonderful at first. You envision yourself throwing off the shackles of passivity and procrastination and acquiring new, exciting skills that will completely transform how you see the world and how the world sees you — though the practice is usually a bit more prosaic, and sometimes downright painful.
The imagining part is important, for sure, but the reality is starting a new habit can feel a bit like a visit to the dentist — a necessary but uncomfortable experience.
We can try to logic or bully ourselves into feeling good about the decision all we like, but the resistance most of us experience is real, almost palpable. A shield of self-preservation against the discomfort we encounter on the path to self-improvement.
Can I tell you a secret? A little behind the scenes, “how-the-chicken-nuggets-are-made” candor?
This article you’re reading, right now, has been a long, long time coming.
Over the past year, I’ve developed a few new helpful habits. I’ve started eating healthier, working out regularly, and adopted a reading schedule that allowed me to absorb around 70 books last year.
But there’s another habit I’ve been trying to cultivate for years. One that proved resistant to all my previous attempts to willpower my way through the barriers preventing me from becoming my best self.
Writing.
Your guess is as good as mine why writing should be a harder habit to foster than working out or eating meals that, despite the Food Network’s best efforts, aren’t as tasty as the over-salted, highly-saturated fare of yesteryear.
But I’ve been on Medium since 2015, and I can remember feeling an immediate desire to contribute to the platform, yet I’ve only recently begun publishing.
What gives?
Dale Carnegie writes in his oft-cited classic How to Win Friends and Influence People that,
“The only way I can get you to do anything is by giving you what you want.”
I’ve come to realize this statement not only applies to others we wish to persuade over to our own point of view but also, just as powerfully, to ourselves. And it makes total sense.
Our bodies and our minds have become accustomed to doing things a certain way. Any self-serving action we take results in a nice little shot of dopamine, and we’d be reluctant to give up this reward for nothing in return.
Why make an effort to improve ourselves when we can Netflix and bliss for the next 4 hours? Option number two offers a much more familiar path to pleasure. And any regret we feel won’t come until later, while the struggle of practicing something new is staring us right in the face.
But what if there was a way to strike a deal?
Instead of a hostile takeover, we could form a partnership between who we are right now and the person we’d like to become. Maybe find a middle ground further from the prison we’re trying to escape and closer to the ideal we envision.
But in order to make this happen, we need a few tactics commonly used in business dealings between two opposing sides. And when properly employed, both parties will leave feeling as though they’ve won.
Practicing these skills has allowed me to finally break down the barriers of resistance. As a result, I feel better, read more and I’ve formed a regular writing habit — a goal I’ve been dreaming of achieving for years.
Great negotiation is an art form. Below are 3 techniques you can use on your way to becoming a masterpiece.
Be willing to make concessions
The term negotiate kind of implies the need for compromise, right? — at least a little. In fact, if you never find yourself compromising in life, you’re probably not asking for enough.
But isn’t compromising a bad thing? Well, not if it’s done with a little careful forethought.
Compromises done well can build bridges between where we’re at right now and the places we want to go. Some people may have the strength to leap over any chasm that sits between them and their ultimate end goal. But for the rest of us mortals, a concession or two will help us overcome the obstacles we face much faster.
But how do we know where to draw the line? How do we ensure the compromises we’re willing to make are a help and not a hindrance on our way to forming a new habit?
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the President, said,
“ There’s more than one way to get to the goal that you want to get to, but once you compromise your own principles, then you’re lost. You’re really lost.”
When I began dieting and exercising, I was in as bad a spot as anyone might find themselves. I hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a casserole in a decade, and the determining factor for deciding what to eat was a combination of ‘is it fast’ and ‘is it tasty’.
So what did I do?
I compromised of course. I decided that instead of limiting what I ate, I would instead limit the amount of time I had to eat. Most of you probably recognize this concept as intermittent fasting. This was a great compromise because I didn’t need to give up any of the food I enjoyed eating.
But do you know what happened? I found myself eating less blatantly bad food as a result of having less time to snack between meals. This led my body to become less dependent on salty and sugary things, which made it easier to experiment with healthier main meal options.
This compromise succeeded because it served my main objective. If I had conceded the right to extend my eating schedule on the basis of being super hungry, it wouldn’t have worked. I would have found enough excuses to finish off a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos daily.
Similarly, I started my fitness journey with a single pushup. No, seriously. I said, “JD, it’s okay to start small, as long as you’re consistent”
And honestly, if I would have gone out and bought a bunch of heavy weights right away, I probably would have ended up injuring all sorts of important things — which would not have been the best motivation to continue.
But then one pushup led to two, and two led to four, and so on. I’m at the point now where I probably wouldn’t get thrown out of boot camp on my first day.
If you’re wondering if the concession your contemplating makes sense, consider the words of our former President.
“A good compromise … is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‘Huh. It works. It makes sense.’ ” -Barack Obama
Identify the pain point
It’s helpful to have an empathetic mindset when we’re upgrading habits. Attempting to drill-sergeant or shame our identities into submission can be counterproductive and may cause our current habit to dig in its heels, refusing to budge.
As Henry Ford once said,
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from his angle as well as your own. ”
We’ll always be able to find convincing reasons not to take the next step. But if we take a close look at why we feel Resistance to change, the pain behind the willingness to stagnate, there’s often a compromise to be made.
Sometimes the pain is easily identifiable. As we discussed before, dopamine plays a powerful role in our desire to act, or remain idle. So much of the technology we use today is specifically designed to hold our attention for as long as possible by using the brain’s dopamine release controls against us.
If you feel like this might be your issue, then a simple intermittent dopamine fast may be the answer. This would allow you slowly transition toward new healthy habits while minimizing the painful effects of abruptly abandoning the old ones.
However, your pain point may be more subtly woven into your subconscious, as I found was the case with myself and my unhelpful habit of watching too much television.
When I was growing up, T.V. time was family time. When the workday was over, the living room was where we congregated and had most of our conversations. As a result, most of our conversations tended to be about our favorite television programs. We even ate while we binged. As I got older, I carried this mindset to the office and noticed most of my ‘water cooler’ chats were about what was on the tube the night before. So the decision to give up watching T.V. in order to read more was a huge personal struggle. I worried that without this connection to friends and family I would feel, ahem, remote.
It was a long process that involved many small steps. Listening to audiobooks while I eat has been helpful as well as removing the batteries from the clicker. And it turns out that more people in my peer group actually read books than I had previously realized, which means instead of vanishing, topics of conversation merely shifted from screen to page. Recently, I decided I don’t need a television at all anymore, and I’m currently debating between chucking my entertainment center or converting it into a bookshelf for my growing collecting of hardbacks.
Family visits are interesting as we try and come up with talking points that don’t involve our favorite pastime, but the benefits are a healthier mind and the opportunity to get to know my family better than I ever have. A win-win.
Recall past successes
Imagine you have a bit of vacation time coming. You’d really like to go somewhere new and exciting, but your inner couch potato would rather have a nice, relaxing staycation.
Now there’s nothing wrong with spending holidays anchored at port, but the adventurer inside of you has their sights set on new horizons. They’ve been dreaming about creating new memories with unfamiliar faces in exotic locals.
What to do?
In such a situation, a subtle reminder of a successful holiday spent surfing and scuba diving in a dream destination might do the trick. Recall the smell of the ocean and sounds of laughter and good conversations at the tiki bar after a long day in the sun — the aroma of that dish you were nervous to order but ended up being one of the best things you’ve ever eaten.
Memories have more of an impact if they’re tied to emotions. When we make promises to ourselves about a better tomorrow, yesterday’s successes can act as evidence that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an optical illusion.
When my mind begins buzzing with a thousand reasons not to write, why I’d be happier doing literally anything else, I remind myself of the feeling of accomplishment I get when I finish an article. This habit I’m creating is worth the effort, worth the sacrifice, and I can prove it.
Wrapping things up
Habits have deep roots, and this can be a good thing. We don’t want the new, good ones we’re building to be brittle things, broken by the slightest distraction. And we shouldn’t expect the old, bad ones to disappear in a flash just because we ask nicely.
But if we take a moment to understand why we do the things we do, then we can begin to negotiate away the unhelpful habits of yesterday and fill the space with new routines our best self would be happy to call their own.
Thank you for reading! Feel free to drop a comment below if you have any questions👍 Be sure to follow along if you like articles and stories about joy and positivity. I also write a little poetry sometimes, too 😊