Changing Habits: How To Work WITH Your Brain, not against it

Changing Habits: How To Work WITH Your Brain, not against it

In coaching success depends on your clients ability to make lasting changes to their behaviors. They need willpower, motivation, and a strong „why“ to accomplish their goals. But we all know from experience that this is often not enough.

Creating lasting change is hard because old habits and patterns tend to pull us back into our comfort zones. As a result, we often end up returning to the status quo. No matter how motivated we were at the beginning.

An explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the way our brain works. All of our habits are saved there in the form of neural patterns, and their job is to make our daily lives as easy as possible.

Our brain is the organ that consumes most of our energy. That’s the reason why it has to function and process information economically. We perform more than half of our actions automatically and process up to 95% of all information subconsciously.

Changing Habits by using the power of dopamine

The brain uses the „feel-good hormone“ dopamine to work most efficiently. It is released whenever actions and experiences are perceived as positive and successful. In other words, the brain tries to find solutions for each task and rewards us with a shot of dopamine that makes us feel good if we succeed. Furthermore, once a task is successfully completed, the solution to perform this task again in the future is stored in the prefrontal cortex.

According to this principle, a neuronal network is created in our frontal brain that makes our everyday life more manageable and allows us to complete our routine tasks in the most efficient way without thinking much.

If we try to establish new habits or replace old ones, we should take advantage of this valuable knowledge of the brain’s reward system because sheer willpower is usually not enough to achieve lasting change.

Here are three powerful tips for implementing this knowledge in coaching, counseling, and any other change process:

1) Changing Habits by becoming aware of positive experiences

By becoming aware of what has worked well and what positive changes a new action has brought, we prompt our brain to store the new routine as a positive solution. For example, encourage your clients to keep track of their progress in CleverMemo. A journal or regular weekly review is beneficial. The goal is to write down and recount the positive experience as vividly as possible. During writing, the client mentally relives the experience, which provides additional positive reinforcement for their brains.

2) Rewards for success

Remember clients to reward themselves whenever they succeed (dopamine release). Always link each step or accomplishment toward the goal with a reward. Once again, the aim is that our brain identifies the new habit or action as a positive solution and memorizes it accordingly.

3) The art of small steps and the power of emotion (celebrating milestones)

It is best to make the journey as joyful and fun as possible. We can achieve this by celebrating even the smallest successes and always focusing on the next step. It is better to approach the process step by step instead of being overwhelmed by the big end goal. Again, this involves the reward system in the brain. Instead of being frustrated that the big goal has not yet been accomplished, we should see all the positive changes and the small things already working.

The big takeaway for any coaching or change process is to work WITH our brain, not against it.

Neuroscientists know what happens to the brain’s structure when new habits are formed – and what must happen to create new habits or behavior patterns that endure. They also know what it takes to turn bad habits into good ones. And that’s what makes or breaks the success of our clients.

Coaches who understand how to apply this knowledge have a tremendous advantage over those who continue to rely only on the willpower and motivation of their clients.

They’ll know precisely how to select the most effective techniques and methods for their clients that work with the human brain instead of against it. And they’ll be able to produce better outcomes for their clients.

The “Build Good And Break Bad Habits” Toolkit is based around this groundbreaking knowledge and enables you to integrate these insights into your coaching immediately.