If you’re a nostalgia nerd like I am, then National Old Stuff Day sounds like a perfect excuse to call out from work to binge watch ‘80s sitcoms all day. But this unique holiday isn’t about celebrating old stuff; it’s about taking a moment to recognize the same old stuff you do every day and think about how you can break out of any of those routines that have become ruts.
What’s an old habit you would like to change? Perhaps you stay up too late watching television and don’t get enough sleep. Maybe you rush out the door every morning and don’t eat breakfast until you get to work. Or maybe you find yourself eating out every day because you didn’t have time to pack your lunch. Whichever old habit you’d like to change, take a moment to think about its different components to discover how you can make that change.
Every habit has three parts: the cue, the routine, and the reward. The cue is the trigger that sets the habit in motion. This can be a time of day, a location, other people, a behavior, an emotion, a thought, etc. It’s whatever happens just before you feel the urge to perform the habit. The routine is the behavior you engage in—the steps that lead up to the reward. Finally, the reward is the payoff—often a feeling of pleasure or relief.
Let’s analyze one of those common habits, like eating out because you didn’t pack your lunch. The cue that sets this habit in motion starts long before lunchtime, when you realize you’re hungry and have to go out to get food. It starts when you wake up too late or when getting ready takes too long, and you no longer have time to pack a lunch. The routine is leaving the house without a lunch. And the payoff is relief and a bit of pleasure: you didn’t have to do any extra work in the morning, you made it to work on time, and you have restaurants that serve food you enjoy close to work.
Once you’re able to diagnose the cue that precedes your habit and the reward you get from it, you can insert a new routine that will satisfy your urge. The key here is to choose an activity or a solution that delivers an equal or better reward.
What can you change so that you don’t have to eat out every day? How about something as simple as setting the clock to wake you ten minutes earlier? Or, even better: how about preparing and packing your lunch the night before? Take a few moments while you’re helping to get dinner ready. And instead of slapping together some last-minute sandwich that rarely delights you, put some of the evening’s meal together with a healthy snack. Take that time to create a lunch you know you’ll enjoy. Your rewards, then, will multiply! You’ll get an extra ten minutes of sleep in the morning, you won’t have to fret about it while you’re getting dressed, you’ll have a delicious lunch to look forward to and eat, and you’ll even find an extra couple of bucks in your wallet at the end of the day.
On March 2, National Old Stuff Day, take a moment to break out of an old routine and shake things up a bit. The rewards are worth it!
