Make new habits, keep the old

Maintain good routines through big changes

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to maintain your good habits even when
a new season in your life begins. As the song goes,

(00:25):
you can make new friends, but keep the old, and
the same is true for habits too, if you are
strategic about the process. So we've all heard about the
value of fresh starts. Whether it's New Year's Day, your birthday,
the first day of a new semester, or a new job,

(00:45):
or even the first day of the week, fresh starts
provide an opportunity to form new habits. The old you
is in the past. The new you has a fresh
start to become the sort of person who X size
of three times a week, has dinner as a family
every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, night reads in her spare time,

(01:08):
and so forth. Fresh starts are ideal for forming new habits.
But here's the catch. Fresh starts put our existing good
habits at risk. When you move into a new home,
return to in office work after months of working remotely,
or mark the beginning of your kids summer vacation, these

(01:31):
fresh starts can threaten the good habits you already have.
In her new book How to Change, behavioral scientist Katie
Miltman explains, when you're on a roll, any disruption can
be a setback, and of course that is what a
fresh start is. A disruption. A fresh start creates a

(01:53):
clean slate because your past record has been erased. Sometimes
that's great, but it is not helpful if you've got
a track record of success and progress. Milkman notes that
every morning, her fitbit tells her she has taken zero steps.
Plenty of other performance records start from zero. Periodically, two

(02:16):
past momentum can feel well past. Milkman describes research by
her former student Hanshinde about Major league baseball players. When
a player is traded across leagues mid season, their statistics
start fresh, but when they're traded within the National League

(02:36):
or American League, their stats for the season include their
performance on the old and new teams. Die found that
when a player who's not having a great season gets traded,
his performance improved more if he was traded across leagues
and got a fresh start in his statistics, but players
with higher batting averages before the trade saw their performance

(02:59):
to line more if they were traded across the leagues.
So the fresh start was helpful when performance had been weak,
and harmful when performance had been strong. So where does
this leave us well, the best approach is to seize
the fresh starts that you see coming, but make sure

(03:20):
that you protect any good habits that might also be disrupted.
Simply by recognizing that this disruption might happen, you can
make a plan for incorporating your good habits into your
new rhythms. For instance, if you used to meditate for
ten minutes in your home office before starting work, when

(03:42):
you return to the office, you can still meditate. Just
sit in your car in the parking lot for ten
minutes and meditate before you go inside. If you have
enjoyed having lunch with your spouse while you were both
working remotely, but you're back in your office is this summer,
schedule a weekly lunch date and meet up at a

(04:02):
restaurant or in the park if you pack your lunches.
If your workplaces are too far apart for that, schedule
a weekly breakfast date at a diner or coffee shop
before you go your separate ways. You could even make
breakfast for two at home before your kids get up.
Perhaps you've developed a great habit of reserving seven to

(04:24):
ten am as time for deep work, but your kids
swim team practices begin next week, you'll need to drop
them off at eight am every morning. Rather than lose
the habit. See what you can do. Could you hire
a neighborhood teenager to drive them, or carpet with teammates
so another parent drives them to practice and you pick

(04:46):
them up afterwards. Or maybe you move your deep work
slot to the afternoon. There are lots of potential solutions,
but it's better to recognize the fresh start dilemma. The
summer swim schedule pose is, rather than just wondering why
you're not getting anything done, when we see the danger,

(05:07):
we can act on it. That lets us use the
fresh start for new good things and not lose old
good things in the process. If you are working to
maintain a good habit through a fresh start, I'd love
to hear how it's going. You can reach me at
Laura at Laura vander Kamp dot com. In the meantime,

(05:32):
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook

(05:53):
and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's b the number four,
then break fist p o D. You can also shoot
me an email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot
com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.

(06:18):
Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
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