How to retrain habits

I used to floss my teeth after brushing them.

My girlfriend explained that it’s better to do it the other way.

Turns out, it wasn’t so straightforward to just switch the habit – I would often start brushing, and forget to floss first.

That’s why I came up with an idea how to retrain the habit, which worked surprisingly well:

Whenever I would remember that I ought to do it the other way around, I immediately stopped brushing my teeth (= interrupted the wrong step in the sequence).

I then did the right first step in the sequence (flossing), and finished with brushing.

This worked, as I had theorized: I was able to rewrite the habit.

Now, when I brush, I nearly always start with flossing.

Recommendation

Whenever you want to retrain a habit sequence, or retrain a habit altogether:

immediately interrupt the habit, when a thought crosses your mind that you ought to do it in another way.

Let’s say you want to give up smoking – and absent-mindedly lit up a cigarette.

When the thought crosses your mind that you actually decided to stop smoking, immediately extinguish that cigarette.

Over time, this will push the habit further and further forward – until the action will not start at all, as you will remember in real-time, before starting.

Bonus: how to learn how to log into your online banking system?

Since I log into my bank account multiple times per day, I figured it’s better to not use the password manager, but enter the account number and password from memory.

Here is the way I did it, in – again – surprisingly few moves:

• enter the number the way you remember it (will be wrong most likely)
• check and manually correct the number (do not copy paste)
• repeat, until you start getting the number right
• then do the same with the password
• you have learned how to type the account details from your memory – they will just flow.

Speculation: how to retrain thought processes

I speculate that thought processes are basically just habits.

For example, I have this mental block about business being hypercompetitive, which I picked up from Peter Thiel.

(I don’t blame him specifically, but I started to see competition everywhere … and am worried about margins).

Therefore, if I want to retrain that thought, or balance it out, I need to notice when it comes up, and replace the thought by a more accurate perception of reality.

Doing this often enough will actually rewire the habit. And, if I can go by my tooth flossing and online banking login experience this will be faster.

I speculate that this might be a good way to do it, and also to retrain other self-defeating beliefs.

Credits

Photo by Roman Marchenko on Unsplash