Banish bad habits

A lot of great thinkers throughout history have given plenty of thought to habits. Some of them, like Aristotle, who said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit,” have generally positive things to say about habits. Others, like Warren Buffet, who said, “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken,” might be interpreted as having a more negative viewpoint of habits.

However you feel about habits, it can be assumed that most of us have both good ones and bad ones. Most of us brush our teeth regularly, but then we may also eat things we know we shouldn’t or spend money we don’t have. Habits, both good and bad, are also present at work. These things we do may not even be conscious choices we are making, but have become so ingrained in our daily existence that they have become unconscious. It’s at that point when they have the biggest chance to have a negative effect in the workplace - from a relationship with a single co-worker to the entire corporate culture.

I recently talked with our local career counselor extraordinaire, Dr. Natosha K. Monroe, to help us figure out why we have bad habits, and how we can identify and overcome them to help us improve our work environments.

The tip of the self-awareness iceberg?

Whether or not the bad habit manifests itself at work, a bad habit could be a sign of something deeper that’s really going on. “Bad habits exist due to being learned from somewhere, being reinforced in some way, and/or not being appropriately extinguished. A bad habit is a signal to a deeper problem. Picture the bad habit as the tip of an iceberg. What’s lurking further beneath the water’s surface is what must be discovered to truly address what’s going on,” said Monroe. However, realizing that the bad habit is just that - the thread that should be pulled to unravel the bigger issue - is a good thing. “Depending on their severity, bad habits are the more noticeable versions of personal quirks, defense mechanisms, personality deficiencies, or long-standing personal problems,” Monroe said. “Discovering the root problem means opportunity for true resolution.”

But let’s keep in the shallow end of the pool for just a bit. If we know that everyone - including us - has good and bad habits at home and at work, then we must have enough courage to identify those bad habits before we can try to fix them. In Monroe’s line of work, that’s called being self-aware. “Professional self-awareness is an interesting component that is rarely discussed but can be a make-or-break factor in success,” Monroe said. “Actively seeking and being open to constructive professional criticism is a great way to be made aware of otherwise unknown bad habits. This can be done formally by requesting a regular meeting with a professional mentor or informally with a trusted peer, for example.” If that’s a little much for you to get started with breaking bad habits at work, there are other, more subtle ways to go about it. These might be looking at our immediate work environment, quality of feedback on tasks, frequency of co-workers asking advice on projects, or how often conversation is initiated by others, which can indicate how we are perceived at work.

One interesting trend that Monroe’s been noticing in recent years is the rise of narcissism in the work place and how it plays in to the bad habit mix. “With evidence indicating narcissism has practically doubled in the U.S. in recent decades, it may be difficult for many people to acknowledge their bad habits until it becomes a tangible problem for them such as a formal reprimand or an altercation with a peer,” Monroe said.

Breaking bad

Once the bad habit is identified, we need to stop it in its tracks. But how do we do that? Monroe offered a strategy of replacing the bad habit with a good one. “Something simple like creating a good habit of always drafting an email reply and then waiting at least 10 minutes to re-read it prior to sending can eliminate the bad habit of reacting inappropriately to uncomfortable emails,” said Monroe.

While that strategy can help to break the habit, we still need to deal with the underlying issue to finally put it to bed. “If it’s a bigger habit, such as always procrastinating work tasks, the deeper root of the problem hasn’t been addressed, so it might remain a sleeping bear that will wake up to roar again as soon as things get a bit stressful. The key is to truly assess the deeper issue at hand and deal with it head-on,” Monroe said. To dive into the deep end of the pool, we must be willing to not only ask the hard questions of ourselves, but also come up with an action plan that we can stick to. “[Ask yourself], what is the real issue here? What am I avoiding? What is keeping me from doing this? What am I gaining from keeping this bad habit? What’s my excuse?” said Monroe. “Then come up with action steps-not ideas, or concepts, but actions-to combat the bad habit, or act differently than before. Avoid the word, ‘try.’ When devising the plan to break a bad habit, do not say, ‘I’ll try to...’ Trying is technically inaction or an action-in progress, at best. For a habit to be broken there must be action.”

Finally, beyond just being symptoms of a larger issue, bad habits can also be defense mechanisms. “Many people will subconsciously keep a bad habit in place simply because it’s a more comfortable justification of failure or poor performance that might occur, for instance. It’s important to be honest and determine what’s lying beneath the surface of a bad habit; addressing that can be very freeing.

“With rare exception, eliminating any bad habit is definitely possible. That being said, it’s important to recognize when it’s not going away. Since truly bad habits tend to be a result of subconscious mechanisms, it’s wise to seek out a professional with expertise in truly resolving the root of the problem and not just the simpler symptoms,” said Monroe.

Dr. Natosha K. Monroe is a psychologist and cognitive behavioral therapist with offices in Fort Worth and Southlake. Her expertise has been utilized by the FBI Training Academy and the American Counseling Association. She currently enjoys helping clients with career development and anxiety-related challenges. You can find out more about her under “Find a Therapist” at www.psychologytoday.com.

This story was originally published May 21, 2017 at 12:41 PM with the headline "Banish bad habits."