A stick insect blends in seamlessly with green leaves showcasing nature's camouflage.

Why your habits don’t stick

Creating a new habit, or breaking an old one, requires something that humans are wired to avoid: change.

There is safety in continuity. We know what to expect, exactly what we’re getting. 

In a hunter-gatherer setting, this works. Our amygdala, the part of our brain that triggers our fight or flight response, is most settled when it can predict what’s coming.

So, when we decide we’re going to disrupt our schedule with this… change thing… our amygdala goes on alert. It’s looking for the danger, the ways that this could go wrong, the ways that this doesn’t fit into the identity of who we are.

This is true for creating a new exercise schedule, sending those cold emails to start navigating a new path, even carving time or space in your day to do something that lights you up.

So. How do we work with this millennia old hardwiring?

  1. Start small. Studies show that going to the gym for just five minutes is more important than how much work you do at the gym. Why? Because you’re building a muscle, a habit, to keep showing up. Once you’re there, you’ll likely do more, but the important piece is to show up. And your reptile brain needs to feel safe doing so. So we don’t need hardcore workouts— or to send 50 emails right at the start. We need to calibrate, to get the reps in, to build the habit around your identity.
  2. Take care of the basics. Let’s be real. If you’re not eating foods that make you feel nourished, or getting enough sleep at night… it’s hard to do anything besides live in survival mode. To make changes, we have to take care of the basics.
  3. Breathe. Change takes time, and it happens choice by choice. You’ve been intentional about the things you’d like to bring into your life— now it takes a thousand intentional choices to get there. Want to skip the gym? It’s a choice. (And it makes the choice easier when you say “just 5 minutes.”) Want to break Dry January? It’s a choice. It takes a breath to acknowledge that, in this moment, you have the opportunity to become who you said you were going to be. To make that choice.

Accomplishing goals requires a new habit, and our brains have been hardwired to avoid change. To truly steer our course, it takes intention in order to work with this ancient system.