Why do we go back to our old patterns or habits?

One of my clients, Paula Kent, once asked the question, “Why do the destructive patterns emerge so quickly when situations or life gets stressful?” In simple words, why do we go back to our old patterns of old bad habits?

​First, think about the bad habits that you have. 

I know for me that as soon as I get busy:

• I stop sleeping as much
• I stop exercising 
• I stop having free time
• I become an irritable mom
• I don't eat as well
• I don't spend as much time with my family

All of those things go away, and I lose my balance. This is where Paula was and where so many of my clients get.

The Wheel of Life

Your first tool or first way to really battle this is with the wheel of life. 

The Wheel of Life is a professional coaching tool. What it does is it really shows you a bird's eye view of what life balance is like for you at the current moment. Not three weeks from now or three weeks ago. 

So today, how is it? How is your balance? How satisfied are you in each area of life? 

It's going to quickly tell you where you're not satisfied. It's going to quickly tell you where you're off balance. When you have these destructive patterns that emerge so quickly, it's going to give you the answers right in your face to the question: Where am I really losing it? 

Making New Goals or Habits

Now that you know the areas to focus on:

• “My health is suffering.”
• “My house isn’t where I want it to be.”
• “My relationships are strained.”

Then you get to make a decision. Do I want to do more in that area to make that better? 

If yes, you’re going to make some goals or some new habits around those areas. This is one option.

Get into Maintenance Mode

Another option you have is to pull back and go into maintenance mode when life gets stressful or when major things happen. 

For example,

• You have a friend, whose husband suddenly left her and you have to be there to pick up the pieces
• You have a flood in your house 
• You have a big project that comes on
• You get sick or someone else in your life is sick and you have to care for them. 

Those are all things that happen quickly and can be unexpected. Even if you knew it was going to happen because a big project, renovation or surgery was planned, it is still something that can make you feel overwhelmed. 

Life gets stressful, but you need to know what you have to do to get into maintenance mode. What do you do when life gets crazy? Here are some examples: 

• This week, we're gonna order one of those meal services.
• This week, I'm going to pull out those frozen foods that I've already created.
• I'm going to just buy food, like frozen pizzas and lasagna or whatever is quick and easy. 

In maintenance mode, you can also think of doing/not doing these things:

• You don’t bother cleaning my house this week.
• Rather than you booking a time to go to the gym or do a class, maybe you just make sure that you do 10 minutes of exercise at home or you go for a walk 
• You reach out to your friends and say, “Girl, I love you. But I can’t see you for the next two weeks because things are crazy right now.” 
• You ask or you tell certain family members or friends that you need their support. 

You need to know which areas of your life you can dial back on: which solutions you can bring in to make that area easier.  Maybe get a house cleaner that week just to help you out. Maybe you bring on someone to help you in your business that week. 

When life is crazy, ask yourself, “What are the basics of what I need right now?”

I call that maintenance mode. Rather than you trying to fulfill all 10 areas and be perfect and amazing in all of your life, you really get to dial back in those certain areas. You could focus on just the top 4 priorities.

When my son broke his femur, there were definitely a lot of things that I had to do in order to go into maintenance mode. I've seen this in clients when they were on a leave of absence or mat leave, then the company wants them to come back to work full time. The problem is if they didn’t they would lose their job. All of a sudden, they're back in a full time career, but also trying to manage everything they managed before.

Just go into maintenance mode. Use the tool of the Wheel of Life to really see where things are at, and then have a little grace with yourself. We fall back into patterns because they were easy or for some reason, they supported us before. But you have now either leveled up your life and who you are, and you don't want to undo the good work you have done. 

If you already have a really great morning routine, you already have a really great health routine, or you already have really great relationships, you don't want to undo those by going back to those bad habits. 

Use your self-awareness. Go into maintenance mode so you can stay on track and figure out an easy plan. Write down all the things you are not satisfied with. Then once you are feeling less overwhelmed, put a plan in place where one by one, you can start to get back into the swing of things. 

If you’d like to go through the Wheel of Life you have 2 options:

1. Get it in the Ultimate Success Toolkit which is the Black Friday special. 
2. Reach out to me [email protected]. We can go through it together and figure out what your maintenance mode looks like and help you stick with your good habits.

Read my other blogs here:
​1. Using GOOD Habits to Achieve Your Goals
2. How successful women replace BAD habits with GOOD Ones
3. 10 Honestly GOOD habits to have