The Cycle of the Murmuring Habit

I am sure this will count for something in choice and accountability. 

The Cycle of the Murmuring Habit

Just a quick review of  habits.  Cue, action, and reward.  To create a good habit: plan a cue that will spark the desired action that leads to the reward.  To get rid of a bad habit: identify the bad habit’s cues and rewards.  These must remain the same and then plan a new action taken at the cue.  That is a real short review and of course there is more to it than that. 

Just finished reading 1 Nephi 16.  Laman and Lemuel have a very bad habit.  When the going gets tough…they murmur.  I have the same bad habit.  It probably started innocent enough as they left their home in Jerusalem.  They both turned to each other and complained about how Dad had really gone too far this time.  The reward was mutual sympathy.  Using that as a cue, they turned to Nephi and Sam and complained to them.  Probably not much reward with that.  Then they tried to escalate the murmuring by going to their Dad. 

Things are going along great though for a while. They make it back successfully from their second trip to Jerusalem.  They marry.  The Liahona is given and they move on into the wilderness.  They are able to kill food for their families.  They probably feel very manly.  Then there comes a hiccup in the works.  Their bows lose their spring and Nephi’s breaks.  A problem has arisen, that is the cue. What action comes from the cue? Complaining!  Not, “How do we fix our bows?  Can we make a new one?  What about traps or snares?”  Nope, no habit of solving the problem has been developed, just the habit of murmuring. 

Note how their habit of complaining spreads.  Even to the prophet.  Sounds like the whole camp had moved from murmuring about their situation to complaining to and about God.  Poor Nephi, luckily for everyone else, developed different habits.  Notice verse 21.  He doesn’t say he is afflicted with lack of food.  No his affliction is his brethren.  In fact the affliction of his brethren “began to be exceedingly difficult.”  And apparently this brotherly aflliction caused the inability to obtain food. 

What is Nephi’s action to this cue of affliction?  See verse 21.  He begins to speak much unto his brethren that they must not harden their hearts or complain against God.  He doesn't pray and he doesn't make a bow. He calls his brothers to repentance. 

Next he makes the bow (solves the problem somewhat without prayer), goes to his dad and asks him to pray to get direction. 

What a great habit.  When the going gets tough…get going.  Don’t sit there.  Do what you can do.  Remind others that it is God who is in charge!  Then get to work.  Follow the line of authority.  Go and do! 

Everything works out well for family, they get fed.  They all take up the journey again.  

 But then Ishmael dies.  The habit of murmuring follows a different path this time.  A father dies.  That is the cue of a cultural habit, mourning.  The daughters mourn exceedingly.  But they don’t stop.  They escalate to mourning about their situation.  Mourning changes to murmuring and they murmur against the prophet. 

Now for women who think they don’t have any power over the priesthood…these woman continue to murmur. As these women continue to complain, their husbands decide to take drastic action.  Look at verse 37, they want to commit murder.  Yep, the women drove them to that, I believe. 

Thank goodness, that even in this very difficult time, the Lord is still with them and with His own voice they are called to repentance and humble themselves.  But they fail to change their actions, their habits remain the same.  So when the next cue come, the next tribulation…yep, they murmur. 

Tribulation is part of my journey of life.  Some tribulations are only minor and others seem so large they threaten to completely derail the journey forever. 

What habits can I develop when the cue of tribulation hits?  Will I murmur and search for the reward of mutual misery?  Can I recognize that this is the time I can rely on my Savior and his atonement?  When it is tough, will I get going? Will my reward for enduring be the comfort of the atonement in my life and joy in my up and down journey?  I have some planning to do.  

Habits

A short review of the book

The Power of Habit

Why We Do What We Do in Life and In Business

By Charles Duhigg

A book based on scientific study of habits, how they are formed and how we can change habits.  The author introduces the habit loop.  He says there is a cue, something that sets our habit in motion.  There is the habit or action. And there is the reward. 

Developing a good habit is easy.  For instance, say you want to start exercising.  You need to create the cue, laying out your exercise clothes at night so you see them when you get up.  Then you do the action.  This action leads to a reward.  If you want the habit to be one that really sticks, get the habit to create a craving.  It was interesting that 98% of people who exercised commented that they craved their endorphin high.  But for those who really stuck with their exercising, 68% of those also had some way of measuring success in small increments.  They not only craved the endorphins but the accomplishments they made each day. 

None of us want to change our good habits.  But we have so many bad habits.  How do we change those and stay successful at keeping them changed. 

The book is full of many examples and great inspiring stories of how people were able to change their habits.  Read them for yourself.  Here I just want to state the process Duhigg reports that leads to success in changing a habit. 

In order to change a bad habit, it is best not to change the cues or the reward, just the action.  An example is someone who smokes.  The cue may be stress, the action is smoking, the reward is release of the stress.  So how can someone give up smoking, life is stressfull.  We all have it.  But research has shown that caffeine can give the same stress relief as one cigarette.  So when stress comes, drink a cup of coffee, down a Mountain Dew, etc.  The relief comes and a habit is changed. 

Sounds simple but for many of us our bad habits are so ingrained we have no idea what actually cues them and we don’t necessarily recognize what reward we receive. 

This is where the author brings in Alcoholics Anonymous.  Science has recently studied why AA is so successful.  Steps four and five require the Alcoholic to think about and list all the cues that drive him to drink and then all the rewards he feels from drinking.  We need to do the same when it comes to a habit we wish to conquer.  We must concentrate on what is happening at the moment before we take the action we wish to remove from our lives.  How do we feel right afterwards and why?

Of course it is suggested that we write these things down.  Then we have to make a plan for what we will do instead of our bad habit.  For instance we want to stop eating the junk food people bring to work.  We discover that it is when we are bored or sleepy at work that we drop into the break room and grab some Twizzlers.  Afterwards, we are not so tired, we have a little sugar high and besides they tasted good. To change that, we make a plan.  Today, when the boredom hits, instead of walking to the break room, we walk to the stairs and go up and down four or five flights.  We have an endorphin high and we are on our way to replacing the bad habit with a good one. 

Now one thing that researches did not like about AA was their relying on God.  Because these were scientists not chaplains, they wanted to prove that one did not have to rely on God to overcome an addiction or habit.  A scientist in Germany implanted electrodes in the basal ganglia of a number of extremely addicted alcoholics; one had been through rehab 60 times.  They all reported that as soon as the electrodes were turned on they could walk into a bar and have no temptation at all.  Success!  But then they went back to their lives.  The stress mounted (the cue) and soon they were back drinking again even though they had no physical craving for alcohol.  It was the habit they had developed when they felt stress. 

This is the part of the book with the great inspirational stories. For the most part, the author remains a science reporter, but he just can’t explain everything with science. These men found that when they developed a “belief system” of some kind, they succeeded in giving up the alcohol.  They went to AA groups and saw that others were succeeding and that gave them the faith that they could succeed themselves. 

Even if it is just one other person, someone who can help you believe you can do it, solidifies your ability to replace one habit with another. 

In review, to change a habit, you cannot get rid of a bad habit.  It will always be a part of your brain pattern.  What you have to do is replace the action with a good action.  The cues and the rewards must stay the same.  But to be totally successful you have to have a community of believers even if it is just one. 

I read this book because I was interested to see why I have been successful at losing weight this time around.  I have seen how doing P90X supported the idea of developing a habit loop. Having the cue, doing the action (habit), receiving a reward.  P90X is extreme and it is not always “fun.”  But Tony Horton, the coach, has you keep track of every rep and every weight you lift.  I had the cues all around me.  My workout sheets were taped to the closet door.  My workout clothes and shoes were there when I got up in the morning.  My husband gets up early too, perhaps the best cue of all.  I got the endorphin high even when I was dying.  But more than that, and I think this is something that really did make a difference for me.  I recorded the weights and the reps and I saw the progress. 

But what has kept me going.  After all, I have done P90X twice and P90X Plus and now I am doing Turbo Fire, another extreme workout.  I have lost weight.  Why keep going? 

I have a group, a community that helped me believe.  I didn’t plan to be able to do all that I have done.  My daughter-in-law does not know how much she influenced me.  Heidi was so successful, she help me I try too.  My son, Jeremy laughed with me and encouraged me too. 

My husband loves my new slim and “powerful” look.  Jeremy started a Facebook group that has given me more incentive.  How can I stop?

But here comes the part that I think the author missed.  He reported people talking about it, but he did not list it as a component of the key to complete change.  All the really inspiring stories about people and groups that changed, reported one specific thing.  They started changing because they wanted to help others.  They stopped thinking about themselves.  In my vocabulary, they developed Charity.  The drunk helped put the chairs away at an AA meeting.  That was it, he put the chairs away.  He had helped the group and began to believe in them.  The football team started to do it for their coach.  The dad stopped cocaine for his son.

I continue to exercise for myself, of course; but also for my family.  I don’t want to be stuck in a wheelchair due to my arthritis.  I want to be the grandma who does, not just watches.  I want to serve a mission with my husband, AWAY FROM HOME.  I want to be able to be of service to others.  I want to inspire the person who thinks they can’t.  If I can, they certainly can.  Others keep me going.  I hope this little review helps others find ways to change too.