No pictures, I wouldn't do that to you
I take a shower shortly before I go to bed.
I can hear you all thanking me for telling you that. (Not!)
The personal cleaning mechanics of my shower are completely uninteresting, and I can definitely hear you thanking me for sparing you those details.
I would like to let you in on what I've been thinking about during that shower, though.
It's becoming habit, and I want to break the habit.
The habit that has overstayed its welcome
I was told a few weeks ago that I'll be switching projects.
Project funding doesn't allow for the same number of people working the project going into next fiscal year, and I am the “lucky” one who is leaving.
This isn't the end of the world, because I still have a job.
I'd be lying if I said it doesn't sting a bit.
What it does have me doing, though, is:
- replaying what happened
- spinning around in what-if scenarios
- planning responses to what happens next
- judging the intentions of the people who made the decision
- questioning the value of my contributions at my job, which I thought were good
I've noticed that this has happened the past several nights in the shower.
It's neither healthy nor productive, and I want it to stop.
It's disruptive and destructive to my well-being.
Two parallel routines in the shower
Charles Duhigg in The Power of Habit talks about habits in the context of cue, routine, and reward.
An example comes from how we respond to notifications from our phone. The ding and vibration is the cue. Checking what the notification is about is the routine. The dopamine hit from the novelty is the reward.
I'll describe this now for my current problem.
Me standing under the shower is the cue.
This sets off two routines.
The first routine is my “order of operations” for getting myself clean (which I promised at the beginning that I wouldn't elaborate on, haha!)
The second routine is what I think about.
The reward part could be a lot better, though
Finally there's the reward.
The overall reward is that I feel better because I'm clean.
But what about the reward from what I think about?
I guess the reward from mentally spinning around in the past is a sense of control?
But it really isn't. I don't have any more control after my shower than I did before.
I'm going to go in with a topic
The root of the problem, by my estimation, is that I didn't give myself something to think about prior to getting into the shower. Without intention, my mind will just do what it's becoming accustomed to doing when I step under the shower, and that's to worry about work.
This is my opportunity to break the habit by going in with intention.
By identifying the cue, I can associate a different routine with that cue. In this case, that routine is a healthier thought process, and it starts with a seed of an idea that leads to a more productive outcome.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a shower.
So … how did it work?
I'm back from my shower.
I decided before stepping into the shower that I was going to think through a post idea I had written about last week in my journal.
During the shower I:
- Thought about that post
- Remembered a topic that re-occured a number of times over the past months
- Thought about a work presentation (actually a fun one for a change, it's for public speaking practice so it's a topic of my choosing)
I didn't brood over the things I normally brood over! Which is great!
Awareness of the cues to our routines serves to show us where to make a change in our habits for the better.
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm John and I encourage entrepreneurship in people, including myself.
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Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash