You need to become aware of your habits because behavior change starts with awareness
Practice trains your brain to identify the cues effortlessly. Many of us are unaware of how many activities our brains already automate. Hair growth, blood flow, breathing, digestion, etc., are automatic commands from the brain to the appropriate body parts.
⚡️There is more to you than your conscious self.
You can train your brain to automate good habits so that you don’t have to pay attention to what you’re doing. After a while, the cue becomes unnecessary, and your brain has learned to make the habit automatic.
⚡️When something is a habit, you do it without conscious attention.
Awareness is the first step to behavior change. Consider learning how to drive. At first, you are conscious of every little detail and find it difficult to multitask. But with practice, driving becomes automatic, and you can execute multiple commands simultaneously. “Pointing and Calling” is a strategy the Japanese railway system employs to minimize errors that can lead to accidents. Operators point at objects and call out commands as they do so. They call out every item and state what should be done with it. This seemingly mundane activity lowers risk by bringing things you were formerly unconscious of into your consciousness.
Another critical step to behavior change is to keep a habit scorecard. This scorecard contains a list of patterns you practice daily, whether good, neutral, or bad. Neutral habits get the = sign, good ones get a + sign, and bad ones get a – sign. You
have positive tendencies if you get a positive score from adding all your habits. A negative net score indicates a negative pattern.
Take your time changing your habits initially. Observe and learn from the consequences of your choices before deciding what to do about them.
Did you know? The strategy of pointing-and-calling decreases the number of mistakes by up to 85% and reduces accidents by 30%.