On repeat

Perhaps you’ve had this experience. You’re driving down the road and your mind starts to drift. Maybe you’re thinking of what you have to do later that day or mulling over something that has been troubling you. Next thing you know, you’re turning down a road that leads to school, work, or some other frequently traveled to destination. Without any conscious thought, you automatically headed where you usually go.

This habituation, or patterning, plays out in many aspects of our lives. In the field of exercise science, there is evidence to suggest that it takes 500 repetitions to learn a particular movement. However, to then change that movement requires over 3000 repetitions! Like a well worn path through the woods, our natural predilection is to create patterns. By automating activities our lives become more manageable. Imagine if, like a newly mobile toddler, you had to think about putting one foot in front of the other each time you went on a walk. You’d probably be about as productive as a toddler with your schedule looking something like “eat, poop, sleep, run amuck, and repeat”.

Too much automation can be detrimental though. Imagine a world where people move through life in a semi-conscious daze, perpetually multi-tasking, and only superficially aware of their surroundings. It’s actually not that hard to picture such a scenario as our culture condones this zombie-like condition, but the trick, is to learn how to create patterns when appropriate and to know how to re-create them when they outlive their usefulness.

Think about what parts of your life are on autopilot. Are there certain scenarios that seem to play out again and again? In the physical body, patterns are stored and reflected in our tissues, but in our subtle bodies of thinking and feeling patterns can be just as entrenched. Cultivating the ability to detach somewhat from the immediate crises through a practice of meditation, yoga, or simple mindfulness can be helpful in seeing patterns for what they really are.

It may be helpful too to remind yourself that you were born into this world as a clean slate. It was relatively easy to pick up patterns of self-care, self-abuse, and everything in between as a child and work of altering those habits takes exponentially more energy, but it can be done.

For example, if you want to improve your eating habits, start with something that is novel. Stopping yourself from doing something that you have done since you were a child, like eating chocolate when you are sad, may not be a good starting point as it is an entrenched habit. Instead, start with a brand new habit, like eating 5 pieces of fruit everyday. Your new goal will be much more accessible and will help build confidence that is needed for the larger effort of unraveling an emotional eating pattern.

Remember too, that just because it doesn’t seem like your efforts are creating an immediate effect that doesn’t mean the process of change isn’t occurring. When learning a movement, you don’t do it wrong 499 times and then on the 500^th time you do it right. Each step is a step closer to your goal.