FRI: The Point of Automaticity

Automaticity is the heart’s ability to spontaneously generate an electrical impulse and “beat” on its own. It does so without your thinking or decision, and we’re capable of achieving the the same higher level of habit formation, and subsequently, process automation in our lives.

Modern research has shown that it takes 66 days to form habit, to be exact. 66 days to get to the point where our routine behaves in the same manner as our heartbeat. In fact, we all have them now.

I’ll give you two examples of mine. The first, every morning, without fail, I wake up and go straight into the kitchen and brew coffee. I don’t think about it, I don’t think in my head that I would like some coffee. I wake and I do. That might seem insignificant or that “everyone does that”, but the point is not to be special or unique. It’s to program behaviors that are repeatable and easy.

The second, is that I go into my office and immediately check my email. I don’t particularly care about my email or get a lot of them. I have no pressing need to do so or managerial benefit, it’s simply a habit that I do now that was born out of need years ago.

The need is no longer, but automaticity has already been born. The irony of now needing to undo this with the same concept is not lost on me. The point is that we have complete and total control over how we want to automate our lives. We can automate it for the better, or we can automate it for the worse.

A current example I am working on is writing every morning. In December, I chose the goal of posting something on this website every single day in 2018, and I am now at thirty days straight. It started as a chore and now, it’s easier and my day feels lacking if I haven’t done it by a certain time. It’s like a systems update. My behavior is being re-programmed and my priorities in the midst of being cognitively re-wired. It’s actually kinda nuts.

I’d like to encourage you to take stock on what kind of habits you have, which ones don’t serve you for the better, and a list of things you wish that you did more routinely.

  • Ate breakfast?
  • Went to the gym at a certain time? Certain days?
  • Called your parents?
  • Said something daily to your significant other?

Any type of success is reached by simply repeating productive behaviors. So do them for 66 days, and you will reach automaticity and likely, on the way to your goal. It’s like your own fun little way to achieve personal AI, and that’s neat.

Just think of all you can get done this year if you simply focus on training habit, not scattered individual acts.

-Dave

Friday, 1.12.18

First, for Structure.
1 Rope Pull and Drag
15” MB Pec Crush
6 Ab Roll-Outs
(x25 Minutes)
—
Then, for Conditioning.
500m Farmer Walk w/ a Pal