How habits can change your life

Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do”. Our daily routine and habits manifest over time as behaviors that either advance or hinder us. The root of this is our identity; the regular actions we take shape our identity.

Let’s say you want to get good grades on your coursework. You are the kind of person to sit down and get it all done last minute and you make a habit of doing this every time the deadline for your assignment comes up. You may get a decent mark if you know you can do it, but you may very well miss out on marks you would have gotten had you habitually sat down for 30 minutes every day, done your research, and typed out a few important points.

Another example is if you drink every day. After work, you have a few drinks to unwind after a long day. Hangovers are a natural feeling for you in the mornings, weight gain is a near certainty, and that fixation on getting through the day so you can get to relax with a cold one plagues you and prevents you from being fully in the moment.

Habits also grow over time. They progress and increase in momentum and magnitude. James Clear, author of the international bestseller Atomic Habits refers to this as “the compound interest of self-improvement”. This is true for both good and bad habits. Looking at the coursework example, overtime spending 30 minutes a day studying will automatically increase to an hour as you find it easier to focus for longer periods of time. You will get your assignments finished quicker and will have gained the writing and research skills to earn you better grades. Likewise, if you drink every day, overtime just two drinks won’t give you the same buzz it used to, so you start drinking more and more. This will cause you to have a worse hangover, more weight gain, a loss of focus throughout the day and eventually a full blown, out of control addiction to alcohol.

You can see the progression of habits in the model below:

When adopting new habits and incorporating them into a routine, it is important to remember this model as habits that are done simply for the routine with no intention of progression leads to stagnation. Author Bill Eckstrom in his 2017 TedTalk Why comfort will ruin your life stated explicitly that “growth only occurs in a state of discomfort”. He talked about how order begets predictability and in predictability, we find comfort. Eckstrom goes on to say that comfort is dangerous because “science shows that anytime you continually do something, or you even think about something the same way, you’ll eventually stop growing” [Eckstrom, 2017].

A perfect example of this would be weight loss. If you keep to the same diet, the same intake of calories and the same workout routine, you will lose weight to a point but eventually your weight loss will plateau once you reach the point where your caloric intake and calorie burning maintains your weight. In order to continue losing weight, you need to increase your output and decrease your intake – what James Clear would refer to as “the aggregation of marginal gains”. A 1% improvement on your habits over time will culminate in a desired outcome achieved sooner or an outcome better than expected.

As our habits develop, we in turn change. Our habits dictate the kind of people we are. Someone who wakes up at 5am to get their work done identifies as a proactive morning person. Someone who smokes, drinks heavily and eats whatever they want identifies as someone who doesn’t take their health seriously. We may not feel connected to our identity all the time as our identity changes as we change, though to get a good idea of the kind of people we are, we can look at our habits to get some idea of what our identity is. With this knowledge, we can seek to change our identity by changing and improving on our daily habits.

I want this to be very clearly understood: your identity is tied to what you do, not what you like or how you look. It is simply down to the type of person you are – your daily habits that show people exactly who you are. This idea that your identity is fixed and unchangeable is a fallacy and holds people back from realizing their potential. Everything is a possibility for you. It is not luck or genetics or super powers; it is simply down to the actions you take every day that dictate the kind of person you are. “We are what we repeatedly do”…I think Aristotle was onto something there.

The Simplicity of Health and Beauty

The global wellness economy, which covers among 11 sectors; mental wellbeing, healthy eating, spas, personal care and beauty, and traditional and complementary medicine, was valued at $4.4 trillion in 2020, with a projected growth to $7.0 trillion in 2025 [globalwellnessinstitute.org]. It is no wonder then that many companies capitalize on this lucrative market in a bid to take advantage of those who pursue the goal of wellness. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the wellness industry, however, many more unscrupulous companies compete to provide ineffective solutions to imagined problems through deception and overcomplication. You might refer to these companies as running a snake oil racquet.

One of the best examples of these scam products are detox foot pads. The companies that manufacture these products claim to draw ‘toxins’ from your body through the soles of your feet while you sleep. In reality, the pads darken with moisture which in this instance is caused by sweat. NMS labs conducted a study for ABC news that showed the same effect of colour change occurred when the pads were exposed to steam.

Although it is true that many traditional practices and medicines such as massage and natural herbs can provide relief for mild ailments, it is the overhyping of ‘fad’ products that fuel the consumption of lies and deception in the wellness industry. The idea of toxins needing to be flushed from the body is a lie perpetuated by companies seeking to peddle cheap products that trick people into buying something that promises a quick solution to their health needs that in reality serve as nothing more than a placebo.

The truth is that health, wellness and beauty is not complicated, nor is it expensive. In fact, I have compiled a list of essential items and services for your wellness needs that are either cheap or completely free.

Free council gym passes

Many council gyms offer free memberships for local residents to access gym facilities, swimming sessions and fitness classes. Usually these run through specific hours through the week so you will need to check with your local council gym for these times. Exercise is so important for improving not only our physical health, but our mental health as well. When you exercise, your brain releases endorphins which are natural opioids that your body produces. These give you a sense of happiness and wellbeing. Exercise also reduces the negative effects of stress and builds your body and mind to be more resilient to day-to-day stresses.

Water

Kind of a no-brainer but our most valuable resource is also one that we in developed countries are fortunate enough to have free access to. Water is vital for keeping you healthy at a cellular level. The effects of dehydration include confusion, fatigue, anxiety, irritability, poor coordination, dry skin and can even make it harder to manage weight. People should be drinking around 3 litres of water a day to maintain their health and cognitive function.

Vitamins

Having a poor diet low in nutrition has innumerable ill effects on our physicality and mental wellbeing. Different vitamins have different effects on the body and many interact with each other or work in conjunction to maintain our health:

· Vitamin A: is found in highest concentrations in liver, fish, eggs and dairy products and aids the absorption of iron

· Vitamin B’s: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 and B12 can all be found in highest concentrations in meat, fish, nuts, eggs and dairy products. A Vitamin B complex diet aids the proper function of nerve cells, raises energy levels and promotes brain function.

· Vitamin C: mainly found in leafy vegetables and citrus fruits and stimulates the production of collagen and aids iron absorption

· Vitamin D: oily fish such as salmon and mackerel are good sources of vitamin D and aids calcium absorption so is good for bone health and also reduces inflammation.

· Vitamin E: found in plant-based oils such as nuts, seeds and avocados and is highly effective in treating skin related problems.

· Vitamin K: is found in cruciferous vegetables such as kale, broccoli and spinach and is responsible for maintaining blood health and bone metabolism

There are also a whole range of minerals that are essential for health such as iron, calcium, magnesium, and zinc; though these can be found in most of the foods already listed. It can be hard to maintain a vitamin rich diet, not to mention rather expensive and time consuming to prepare so supplementing your diet with vitamins can be a good option to ensure you are getting all your essential vitamins to maintain your health. These can be fairly inexpensive and are available at your local pharmacy and even at budget stores like Poundland.

Mindfulness and meditation

There are so many free services that offer guided meditation services. There are many places that offer free weekly group meditations, you can find these on Meetup or often at your local community centre. If you have Netflix, Headspace: Unwind your mind is available on the platform and offers short, guided meditations as a great way to either start or end your day. If you are on the go and looking for something a little more readily available, try the Evolve app. The app offers a free or premium service that allows you to journal and offers daily guided meditation and breathing exercises that help you to alleviate anxiety and stress throughout the day.

Beauty

Asbestos is a natural mineral that is found next to talc – which is used in many cosmetic products. A recent study found that around 15% of makeup products contained asbestos [Clemens, E. 2021]. It’s important that you check what is in your cosmetics as asbestos is a known carcinogen and any cosmetic product contaminated with asbestos puts you at risk of developing cancer. Aside from cosmetics, simply having a natural cleanser, a vitamin enriched natural oil-based moisturizer, and natural sulphate free hair care products are all you really need to stay clean and healthy and promote your natural beauty.

Beyond this, it is unnecessary to turn to products and services that claim to promote wellness and beauty beyond what is essentially free or considered a necessity. Staying healthy is all about simplicity; keeping your body strong, nourished and hydrated, keeping your mind sharp, present and focused and not allowing yourself to be fooled into consuming something from a company that only seeks monetary gain in the name of wellness.

Engaging your creative brain for success

If you have ever been lost in a story – where you can see in your mind the scene that the story creates. Where you can almost hear the voices of the characters in your head as you are reading them, you are actively engaging your creative brain. A lot of people write off the creative side of your brain in favor of the logical side of your brain but that’s simply because people try to pin down the logical side as something that they can understand. It is impossible to understand the creative side of your brain because the creative brain is abstract. When you engage in a creative project, both sides of your brain are being used. Let’s say you are painting a picture. The logical side instructs you on how to do it; it tells you how to judge the perspective, how to keep things in proportion, it tells you what brush techniques to use, it tells you how to fix mistakes. These are all skills that you cultivate from research, learning and practice. It functions off of remembering skills you have learned and how you can replicate that in any given situation. Creativity is the inspiration to do something different. It cannot be fully understood because it is subjective and cannot be replicated. Here's an example, something for you to try right now. I’m going to give you a scene and you are going to close your eyes and imagine you are there.

You are at a beach. You are with 3 people who you have never met but you can picture what they look like very clearly in your mind. What can you hear? What can you smell? Is it a hot day or a cold day? What are the people around you wearing? What are you wearing?

Do you see how many possibilities there are here? It would be impossible to give this exercise to 100 people, get them all to write detailed descriptions of what they saw in their minds and get any two descriptions that were the same. Of course, a lot of what you create is based off of memory. The beach is probably based off of a beach you have seen in a picture once. Perhaps one of the people bears a striking resemblance to a celebrity. Or some distant memory of the smell of suntan lotion and doughnuts comes to mind but your creative brain has deconstructed all of these things you’ve seen and experienced and put them together to create something unique to you.

It is the image you hold in your mind about what you want to create. It is the part of your brain that changes your perspective when you mess up and decides to take things in a different direction to try to fix it. Anyone can replicate something they have seen and learned how to do. Engaging your creative brain is how you are able to create something unique. It is how you can do something that makes you different from everyone else…and everyone has the ability to do this. Everyone. No one was born just blessed with super powers in creativity, creative people are just people who spend time allowing their creative brain to work. You are able to more effectively solve problems when you engage your creative brain because it is constantly seeking exploration. It is actively seeking new experiences and experimenting with concepts. The ability to learn, practice and can replicate a new skill takes a logical approach but in order to create something different, you need to use creativity. There are so many ways that using your creative brain can be incorporated into your daily life:

1. Reading fiction

2. Creative writing/journaling

3. Art

4. Cooking

5. Playing with kids

6. Socializing

7. Hiking/exploring

8. Trying new experiences

The purpose of engaging in creative activities is to harness the power of your creative mind. It needs to be constantly engaged and not distracted in order to function properly. A creative mind that has no creative outlet – if you are just consistently shutting your mind off by mindlessly watching content, this manifests as serious problems with attention and problem solving. The only way to prevent this from happening is to harness the power of creativity through engaging in consistent creative outlets.

How having creative outlets can improve your life

1. It helps you to understand and master your emotions

The creative side of your brain is responsible for your emotions. You can’t regulate emotions with logic because emotions are illogical. It’s not logical to feel insecure or jealous or unhappy about an external event. Think about it like this: when you have been in a really bad mood and something bad happens like your car breaks down, doesn’t it feel like the worst thing in the world has happened? You catastrophize the event because your logical brain is trying to find a reason why you are feeling bad. But you feel bad anyway so there is no real reason why you feel this way, you just think there is because it’s the most logical solution. Now let’s take that same situation – your car has broken down; if you are in a really good mood, don’t you find that it doesn’t really bother you that much and you are much better at fixing the problem? This shows you that your emotions are illogical and are not really caused by external events – they are the result of our creative brains trying to function logically because we don’t have an effective creative outlet – we have not learned to regulate and harness our creativity. Logic does not require emotion, so operating without emotion allows us to be able to carry out repetitive and learned tasks easily and effectively. But being human, we have emotions and when our creative brain tries to take over and function like our logical brain does, it causes us to feel out of control or reactive or emotionally unstable. So by having a creative outlet, we are able to differentiate between what is logical and what isn’t and allows us to be able to feel emotions but not be overwhelmed by them because they are trying to override our logical brain.

2. It changes your perspective

By focusing your creative mind; allowing it to explore and experience new things, you are teaching it to adapt and to create a perspective and image of yourself that is positive…why positive? Your brain is always trying to protect you. Your logical brain goes off of what you know in order to make calculated decisions about how safe it is to try something new. Your creative brain is always engaged with the possibility of wanting to try something new. If you allow your creative brain to have that outlet, it’s like saying “walkies” to a puppy. It revels in this new activity and it doesn’t even have to be something crazy and dangerous, it could be as simple as reading a new book. If you don’t give it that creative outlet, your creative mind tries to do the job of the logical brain and starts constructing all these reasons why you aren’t doing what you want to do, what is wrong with you, why you have problems…concepts that have no basis in reality but over time, it creates this perspective of yourself and the world around you that is negative because you aren’t engaging in new experiences. This can manifest as a generalised anxiety – that the world is dangerous or that you will never be good enough to do something so there is no point in trying. It can manifest as depressive episodes – that life is boring and pointless and that you are boring and pointless and the reason why no one is around you is because no one can stand you. This is again illogical, but because you have constructed this perspective for yourself, it’s the only thing that makes sense to you.

3. It makes you more empathetic

Being able to think outside of your own perspective takes a lot of observation and imagination, working consecutively to establish a sound conclusion. Because being freely creative allows you to put your logical brain to rest, you can approach situations objectively and without judgement or preconceived ideals which leaves room for other people's input. It allows you to see things from a different angle which helps you to be able to relate to people who see things that way.

4. It makes you better at adapting to new situations.

When faced with a problem, sometimes the logical solution is not necessarily the best solution. Sometimes being able to circumnavigate the situation so that you and others can see alternative options is crucial to finding the best course of action.

5. It boosts your confidence

People who embrace their creativity and allow it to come out in a multitude of ways are amoung the most confident of all...because they believe in what they do. When you allow your creativity room to grow, it is like a force unto it's own and you are able to express yourself free from the approval of others.

6. It gives you a sense of authenticity

No two artists are the same. No matter what medium, when you are creating something, it comes from your perspective...you put a part of yourself into what you do. Therefore, anything you do creatively exhibits a part of you...the real you.

7. It is key to progression

As we have seen in the previous points, creativity changes your perspective, makes you empathetic, makes you better at adapting to new situations and boosts your confidence. These are all vital tools when it comes to advancing yourself, whether that be in your career, your relationship or even within yourself.

8. It can alleviate symptoms of mental illness

As we have explored in my points about emotions and perspectives, your creative mind is always looking for ways to find solutions to things that it can’t understand or has no experience of. I’m not suggesting that a lack of creative outlet causes mental illness – there are many complex reasons why people suffer mental health problems and just because someone experiences depressive episodes and feels anxious from time to time, that doesn’t mean they have a mental illness. Many creative people suffer from quite severe mental health issues. For them, their creative outlet is what makes their dark times more manageable. I’ve heard many times that people who are creative geniuses all seem to have mental health problems…I don’t believe that this is entirely true. I believe that the reason why the people we see as great creative minds happen to have mental illness is because these people have seen how transformational and beneficial a creative outlet is to their mental health, that they have thrown themselves into creativity and given it everything they’ve got. Overtime, that effort and that belief and that passion was recognized and just happened to make them a legend. Imagine if you had the gumption to do that. To throw yourself into your creative outlet like your life depended on it – because for some, their life really does depend on it – just imagine the possibilities.

Having experienced mental illness myself, I know how hard it is to stay on track with this. There are days when I have felt like depression has killed my creative brain and my mind is blank. There are also days when I feel so hyper that ideas are just shooting out of my head like firecrackers and I start several projects at once to just cast them aside when my perspective shifts again. But this is where our logical brain comes in. This is what our logical brain is needed for. By learning why we have creative burn out during bouts of depression and methodically continuing to do the things that spark that creative brain; reading, writing drawing, playing, exploring…we can keep that momentum going so that we can continue to harness that power of creation. And when we feel like we have a million ideas all bubbling up and over spilling – taking the logical steps to continue with what we are doing but also to get that energy out and focus it on the project we are working on so that we can finish it. It takes time, practice and patience. But your brain is beautiful. It is weird and dark and mysterious, sometimes dirty and sometimes it’s a little broken. But one thing is for sure, there is not one that is exactly like yours. Letting your creativity bloom, is how you can prove that and trusting your logical brain to keep you on track is how you will make it something monumental.