Whew! I don't know about you, but I had a rough weekend. For the last six months, my husband, daughter, and I have been mostly living in the mountains about four hours from home. Last weekend we had to move out, which meant cleaning the house, packing our things, and heading home in what turned out to be monstrous traffic. All that, plus trying to keep our toddler entertained turned out to be busy.
I did, however, manage to continue with my fifteen daily minutes, and today, as promised, I want to tackle the third part of the habit loop.
Part Three is the reward or final feedback. I thought a ton about this as I packed and organized and scrubbed and sorted...and organized and scrubbed and sorted some more.
To change an action from a deliberate one into a habitual one, you need to give your brain a reward at the end of the action. This makes your brain light up (aka causes a dopamine surge).
This signals that the activity is pleasurable and makes your brain want to repeat it. You might try eating a piece of chocolate or listening to a specific piece of music.
I realize that I do something way less fun.
When I am done working, I hit save, and then I send myself the work via email.
That's it. The email is the reward.
It tells my brain that, even though I may not have finished something or (gasp!) gotten something published, I did accomplish something, by golly.
Now that I realize this, I'll be sure to always do it, even if I know I'll never open the message. Putting a check mark on a calendar would work the same way. The reward doesn't need to be fancy to be effective.
This week, I'll also be looking for other actions I do to reinforce habit loops--both good and bad ones.
What about you? Do you have a reward or third step built in at the end of your creative habit?
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