I said yesterday that Habits was one of three keys that I think helped me change my behaviour with money. I mentioned breaking bad habits and making good ones.

All very well, but why do I think this is so important? Well it brings together stuff I’ve heard from various sources in various guises. All the great motivational speakers seem to refer to it in one way or another. I feel it gets over complicated. At the end of the day, if you’re finding yourself doing something that’s contrary to what you think you desire long term, then I’ll bet there’s a Habit in there somewhere. Likewise, the things I did, the actual actions I took, that made the biggest difference to my finances, were the simple regular little things that became almost ritual.

Habits are like auto-pilot. For me I can find myself doing things out of habit that I don’t really want to do. Things that 10 seconds before I swore I wouldn’t do. I mean I really believed I wouldn’t, and yet suddenly there I am buying a burger at the train station on the way home! This particular example has happened to me more times than I can count. Similarly buying a pain aux chocolat from another shop at the train station on the way into London in the morning!

Can you see a pattern forming. So can I. I have bad bad bad habit’s associated with the train station. I thought about it tonight on the way home.

There are several factors involved. For instance when I’m about to get on a train, I won’t be able to get anything to eat for 30 minutes or more. What if I desperately need food before I get to the cooked meal waiting at home for me? Then there’s the smell. Strong, wafting, juicy smells that get my mouth watering instantly ( yes I bet Pavlov’s feeling smug). Then there’s the layout. In the normal course of events, I pass within 2 metres of the damned Burger ‘dealers’. Finally my tummy, which 10 seconds before was simply an inconvenient lump in front of me, suddenly becomes the centre of my universe. It’s growling, it’s aching, damn if it isn’t actually hurting it’s so hungry. I swear I feel the same as a malnourished child in Africa on one of those charity appeal films. Seriously in that moment it feels like that. But how can it feel so bad when 10 seconds earlier it didn’t feel like anything at all.

Basically in that moment I’m an eating machine being lead around by these pre-conditioned responses. I’m a mindless moronic thing that has to eat. This is what I mean by a bad habit. It’s not like I can have a rational set of thoughts right then. Some how I make up all of these really poor excuses to justify my need to remove these bad sensations and satisfy myself with what my body clearly craves. But again, if my body really craved it, then how can it begin so suddenly?

I have to draw the conclusion that it’s all made up. My head and my body is making all of this up. I’m feeling these things, and acting upon them out of habit, not because I, me, Dave, consciously chooses to, but because the Dave/Habit/subconscious has somehow taken control and is running the show. I think I’ve proven over the years, that facing these habits head on doesn’t work. This habit part of my brain can beat me hands down and 99% of the time gets what it wants. So what can I do?

I think the key for me is that this all comes on so quickly. There is a point as I’m walking toward the station when none of what I’ve discussed here is happening. I’m regular Dave, walking along, thinking what I’m thinking or listening to a Podcast or whatever. Then some moments later I’m the mindless eating machine. There’s no noticeable transition from what I can tell. But it does always happen in the same circumstance – the station concourse.

This gets me thinking along the lines of NLP ‘pattern interrupts’, but I can’t be bothered to get Tony Robbins to throw a glass of water at me every-time I enter the train station. Instead I think I’ll try a few little things and see how I get on.

Habit 1: Take a different walk through the train station.
I’m going to develop the habit of using a totally different entrance/exit, and take a totally different route to my platform. One that doesn’t pass the demon Burger ‘dealers’.

Coupling this with my 30 days makes a habit belief (more on this in a future post), I hereby commit to enacting Habit 1 for 30 consecutive days (that’s 30 consecutive working days – I’m not going into London on a weekend just to avoid Burger King!).

I’ll report here on my progress and whether it helps break the bad Habit.

I’m Dave Amphlett, and I’m not Just Big Boned. It’s an excuse that I and people who love me have used for years, and I’m fed up with it. Besides, bones just don’t wobble like I do!

Let me tell you a little about myself before I go any further. I’m a 37 years old married man, with two young children. I live in Surrey in the United Kingdom, and travel by train to work in the City of London most week days. I write software for a living which requires activity of the brain, eyeballs, wrists and fingers only. The rest of my body is free to vegetate and it does. And then there’s food. Oh how I love food. Sweet sticky fatty naughty food that makes me feel good. I know I comfort eat, and I do it because it comforts me (at least in the moment). Other than that vice I’m a pretty “good boy”. I don’t smoke and I drink very little. But health wise I’m a mess. I play no sports. I do virtually no exercise. I’m seriously overweight, unfit and unhealthy. I get ill more often than I should. My energy levels are generally low, and I don’t sleep particularly well.

That was cheery wasn’t it! So why am I doing this blog? Well I’ve been thinking a lot about sorting my health out, and that was the problem. Thinking was all I was doing. So I wanted to take some action. This blog is the start of that action. “well done, type away, that’ll help” I hear you say, and it’s a fair point. But I figure I’ll start with what I’m good at and work out from there.

You see I have changed myself for the better, financially, and I figure some of those same principals could apply to changing my health! The last two years (2006 & 2007) were pivotal for me. Prior to that I was wasting every penny I earned. I had massive interest payments on a mountain of debt. Now I’m debt free except the house, and I see my savings growing every month. I can’t tell you how confident I feel about the way I handle money now. It’s fundamentally different. I’ve changed, for the better, and if I can change that, then presumably I can change my health too.

During all that thinking I did I decided there were 3 key things that got me the changes I wanted: Habits; Feedback and Accountability, served on a platter of simplicity.

I’ll discus these 3 keys in more detail in future posts, but here’s a quick summary. I changed my Habits, dropping bad habits and forming good ones. I set things up so that it was easy for me to get feedback on how I was doing, to see my progress. And I made myself accountable to others for everything, from sitting down regularly with my wife to review our debt, to telling friends and family every time we met about what I was trying to do (so that they’d keep asking me about how I was getting on).

So why this Blog? I want to use this Blog to experiment with these 3 keys to changing my behaviour. To document my progress for my own sake, and hopefully find others who’ll share their thoughts, feelings and ideas with me so that we can help one another. I want a record of what works and what doesn’t, and a record of the hard facts of my progress. And I want a way to be more accountable. Friends and family aren’t enough, I want the world to hold me to account (well at least you, even if you just accidentally bump into the blog).

So that’s it, the beginning. I have a theory that if you do anything for 30 days in a row, then you’ve developed the habit, so let’s see if I can post here EVERY DAY for the next 29 days and begin to chart my way to being healthy.