Have you ever tried changing yourself to become a better person, to only revert to what you were after a while? People don’t like to change. The small things are not much of a problem but the bigger things are. The reason is simple. Small things are probably new things and big things are old things. Changing how you look by changing a haircut is not much of a problem. Sure if you had the same haircut for years, you will look weird in the mirror. You will see someone that is not you. Something is off. But that feeling will soon stop and you will accept your new looks.

Another example of a small change could be wearing your watch on the other hand. If you have been wearing your watch your entire life on the one hand, then it will feel weird having it on the other hand, for a long time. Even if you get used to it, when someone asks the time out of the blue, you will instinctively look at the arm that had the watch for the longest of time. It’s like your brain didn’t completely rewire it in your mind. That’s because it actually didn’t rewire it at all. You do things differently for each situation:

• Wondering what hour it is.

• Responding to someone that wants to know the hour.

• Wearing a nice suit for a special occasion.

• Going paintballing and looking how much game time is left.

If you get used to the fact that the watch is on the other hand but haven’t used it during a specific situation, then you still will check the wrong hand when you find yourself in that situation. You have to relearn that habit for all the possible ways you have implemented it. It is possible that after a while you will have the reflex to look at the other hand even in situations that haven’t occurred yet. That doesn’t mean that the brain went ahead and rewired everything. No, it just wired in that in new situations you need to look at the other hand.

To change the old habits, you will need to have some conscious thought about the time before you move your hand. That way you don’t blindly follow your old habits. But if something happens and you need to instinctively react, then you will use the habit that is the strongest. For everyday habits, you probably will look at the correct hand after some days. The new habit will become stronger than the old habit at a fast pace. But if you only go paintballing once a year, then it will be many years before you instinctively will look at the correct hand when the bullets are flying over your head.

New habits are created by repetition and the need to have that habit. Knowing where your keys are, is not that important. You can search for them and you will find them eventually. Knowing where your smartphone is, is more important for the new generation. So forming a habit of leaving it at some place where you should find it fast is needed.

I don’t use my phone much, but I do use it to know the time. Because I don’t wear a watch. I keep my phone in my pocket at all times. Unless I sit behind my computer, then I lay it there between the keyboard and the monitor. When I leave, I take it with me. When I go sleeping I put in on the nightstand. When I wake up, I pick it up. So I have a simple rule. I have it always on me except for a few situations where I keep it close by. When I’m exiting that situation I will pick it up and put it in my pocket.

This way of living is simple but it has some weird situations in it. When someone calls me when I’m behind my computer, it is possible that I will stand up and walk around during the conversation and then freak out that my phone is not behind my keyboard. The same thing with happens when I’m on the phone and I want to know what hour it is. I will reach for my phone in my pocket and freak out that it isn’t there. My habits are so ingrained into me that my brain somethings freaks out when the habit is broken. Even if it logical that it is broken because I cannot have my phone in my pocket when I’m using it to call someone.

Habits are hard to break. Have you ever felt stupid because you executed every step of a roadmap even though some steps were already executed? I have that sometimes when I shave. I enter the room turn on the light of the mirror and then take out my equipment. Simple steps. But if the light is already on, then I will still switch the light and actually turn it off. It is such a strong habit that I don’t check if I have to perform that step.

If I decide that I won’t shave for the day because I have a day off. But for some reason, I have to be in the room where I shave. I have had that I unconsciously started shaving and halfway through I come to my senses that I didn’t enter that room to shave. I was there to do something else because I was planning on doing something else that day. It was a no shaving day, and yet I shaved. Force of habit

You can’t break a habit, you can just form a new one that takes precedence. The old habit is still there and it always will be there. Changing as a person becomes hard if you can’t erase your habits. It’s like trying to paint a black wall white. It needs a few layers until the black is covered up. The wall becomes less black and more white with each layer. If something happens to punch a hole into your wall, then the black layer will be exposed again. It is still there, it is only covered up.

Have you ever changed a habit only to have it resurface again after so many years? When I was little I played a computer game. That game had swordsmen, spearmen, and bowmen. Now that I’m older I call that last group archers. But when I was little it was easier to call them bowmen. Every game I play that is new that has archers in them, I will call them archers. But if I play that old game again, I will call them bowmen, like I’m still that little child. The habit is still there, it never left. The same goes for nicknames. If you called a boss by a stupid name because you couldn’t beat him. Then you probably call him the same way after all these years. Even if you have forgotten the nickname. The moment you get angry because you can’t win, that name will be there.

So in the end, you cannot change habits or change the person. The fundaments are there and they keep being there. If the parents made a mistake in the education of the child. Then the child will grow up with that mistake. Even if the child knows it and tries its best to remove that mistake. It will be there. Habits are the fundaments where the personality is built upon. You can form new habits and lay them on top of the old habits. It will be like building fundaments on top of fundaments. But you are taking your past with you, even if nobody can see them or feel them.

When you are in a situation that your new habits don’t cover, but your old habits do. You will use the old habits. If you were a smoker and decided to stop. But you had the habit of popping a smoke with some beer and watching some Disney movies. Then 50 year after you have stopped you will feel that urge to pop a smoke when you rewatch your favorite Disney movies of that time. You may have forgotten that you smoked when you watched them, but your body didn’t. It forgets nothing.

Is there any hope in changing?

So how do we change then? The answer is simple. Don’t ever do something where you already formed a habit off. If you don’t do the things you did, then you can’t fall back into doing them again. That’s why many people move house when their partner died. Too many habits that keep reminding them about how things were.

Habits are like scars of your mind. They are like your belly button. Something you got from an experience in your life and became a permanent part of you.

The second way you can change is to find new ways of doing the same old things. Form a new habit that covers up the old habit completely. Remember the black wall that you want to be painted white. The same goes for new habits. Form them over and over again, layers of new habits onto of the old. The old habit is the strongest in the beginning and will always win from the new habit when you start. That’s why you need many of them. So you can cascade down multiple levels of habits before you reach the old habit. Every level is a potential safety net. The one that catches you the most, will probably become the new habit.

It is like the Desire paths that you see in the grass. Where the grass is gone because people walk over it. A habit is just like that, a scar in the landscape. But unlike in nature, the Desire paths will not disappear when new grass will grow over it. The brain doesn’t want to remove a path that it tried so hard to make. To form a new habit over the old one is like walking a new Desire path over the old one. The biggest or deepest path will be the one that will be used when you are not forcing yourself to take a different path.

It is no use to try to barricade that old Desire path. It will only prevent you from walking that path when you feel like cooperating with that barricade. But if you are in a hurry or something startled you, you will simply ignore that barricade. If the bullets fly around your head and you want to know how long the paintball game will last, you don’t care about that barricade. There is only room for one game in your head. It’s gonna be the mind game or the paintball game. The one that seems the most important at that time will win.

It is possible to change the habit you use, but it will not be easy. It is easier to just change your life so that you are in a green field with no prior habits, no priors Desire paths. A fresh start and don’t mess up this time. Habits don’t die. If you are on your death bed, and they play your old favorite Disney movie, you still gonna want that smoke. Even if you are demented and forgot that you even liked those movies, your body didn’t forget.