The Opportunity in Breaking Our Rhythm
I have been writing almost every week for more than a year and a half. Then I stopped for three weeks.
This was for a good reason, as many of you know. After six weeks of working from Vietnam and traveling through Japan, I came home to Vienna with lots of photographs and ideas, which I thought would be enough to start writing again effortlessly.
They weren't.
Opening my laptop and returning to something I had done every week required more effort than expected.
For me, it was writing. For you, it might be exercise, a project or everyday work. It made me think about returning...
I started looking for answers and found a perspective that gave me a fresh way of looking at broken rhythms.
Problem: Coming back doesn't automatically bring our rhythms back
The holiday ends. School starts. Calendars fill up. We expect to pick up where we left off.
Yet while away, we slept, moved, worked and paid attention differently. Familiar cues disappeared.
Before holidays, writing kept an important part of me active: I write, observe, connect ideas and make sense of them. Three weeks away interrupted that rhythm.
Insight: Disruption can create room for redesign
I recently listened to behavioural scientist Bas Verplanken talk about why habits matter in the podcast "Should you get back into a routine?" in What’s Up Docs by Chris and Xand Tulleken.
He joined the conversation at minute 6:00 and talked about ‘Habit Discontinuity Hypothesis’. He said that habits automate repeated behaviours, helping our brains to preserve cognitive resources for what genuinely needs our attention.
His research with Deborah Roy, “Empowering interventions to promote sustainable lifestyles: Testing the habit discontinuity hypothesis in a field experiment", explores that when old habits are temporarily disturbed, people may be more sensitive to new informationand adopt a mind-set that is conducive to behaviour change.
When familiar cues disappear, patterns become less automatic. That disruption can open a window for more change: a chance to see our routines with fresh eyes and consciously decide what deserves to return.
September feels like a good time for that.
What did I miss?
What worked better while I was away?
What do I need to let go of?
3 things to start with:
💎 Notice before restarting. Look at your patterns before automatically repeating them.
💎 Choose the anchors worth bringing back. Writing is one of mine. Movement is another.
💎 Build for the season you're entering. September has different demands from July.
A Human Performance Architecture Reflection:
A change in context gives us distance from our patterns. Distance creates awareness. And awareness can become the starting point for intentional behavioural change.
A transition gives us material to work with. Coaching can create space outside everyday noise to examine our patterns and decide what deserves our energy, what can be left behind and what we want to build next.
If you need such a space, I would be happy to provide it for you.
Here is the easiest way to reach out to me:
As for me, one answer is clear: writing stays. So here I am, writing again.
Over the next weeks, I will share what Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka made me reconsider about how we work, perform and live.
Warmly from Vienna,
Dilek
Check related FREE resources:
Check further resources and reading:
Podcast:
The article:
“Empowering interventions to promote sustainable lifestyles: Testing the habit discontinuity hypothesis in a field experiment,” by Bas Verplanken and Deborah Roy
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