“ I read somewhere that drinking was bad for health, so I gave up reading!”
For someone who loves her wine, I couldn’t stop laughing when I came across this one liner which held an element of truth. Drinking versus reading, at the end of a hectic crazy day...yeah, I’ll go with drinking a glass to relax and unwind.
Choices.
The choices we make in our daily lives, consciously or unconsciously impact us at a far deeper level than we realize. While our need for immediate gratification pushes us to make impulsive choices, in the long run, they may not be so prudent after all.
It’s simple. Every choice we make translates into habits over time. And habits are not going anywhere anytime soon. When faced for the first time, we take the time to think about our choice as we make it. Yet, once it’s made, there is now an auto response set in our brains for future recurrence.
A concept beautifully explained by Charles Duhigg in his book: “The Power of Habit: Why do we do what we do and how to change”, where he talks about an experiment with rats that were placed into a T shaped maze with chocolate at one end. “The results showed that initially as the rats wandered through the maze, their brains worked furiously, sniffing and trying to find the chocolate. But over time, the rats stopped sniffing corners and making wrong turns. They zipped past the maze faster and faster.
As each rat learned to navigate the maze, its mental activity decreased. The rat had internalized how to sprint through the maze to such a degree that it hardly needed to think at all! The basal ganglia, in other words, stored habits even while the rest of the brain went to "sleep".
Imagine how many actions in our daily lives are creating choices and habits within us, without our conscious realization.
No wonder when we try so hard to stay away from desserts or drinks, our cravings and memory take over so strongly that our instinctive choice and habit kicks in. You can work out as much as you like, but in the end, not having a healthy controlled diet will become your nemesis from shedding that extra fat around your waist.
So how can coaching help you with your choices and habits?
Through neuro linguistic programming (NLP) tools and somatic exercises, we work to help identify a lot of influencing factors from your growing years that may have unconsciously manifested themselves in you. You will recognize and identify these traits and their origins. We will work on old habits and behaviors and by developing new neural-pathways that will guide you to develop new improved conscious habits of your choice. This long lasting transformation will help change your habits and enable you to achieve a controlled outcome.
Maybe in the larger scheme of things, you can drink and keep up reading too ;-)
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