Deeds to Habit
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What is a Habit?
What are habits? How can we change the habits we have and form new ones? Dr. Jibran Khokhar defines what a habit is and suggests ways we can develop good habits throughout the year.
Definition of a habit
Habit is a shift in our behaviour from being goal-oriented to being automatic or habitual. It's our brain's way of automatizing behaviour so that we become more efficient in our daily actions.
Characteristics of habits
- Habits are unaffected by the value of the outcome
- Habits are created through the repetition of behaviour
- Habits can form quicker if the reward is unpredicted, or occurs at an unpredictable schedule
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Bismillahi wa-a'hda wa-s-salatu wa-s-salamu ala malla al-nabiya ba'dah wa ala alihi wa-s-sahaba wa-ttabi'ina lahum bi-hsanil ila qiyam al-sa'a. Today I will be talking to you about what habits are and how we can either change habits that we already have or form new ones. Habits are a fixed way of acting or thinking based upon previous repetition of that thought or behavior. And what it reflects is a shift in our behavior from being goal-oriented to then being automatic or habitual. And so an example that can be given of that is if you come into a room and the room is dark. And you find a light switch and you turn on the light switch to get the outcome that's desired, which is to turn on the light. Over time, especially this happens in our houses where we are so used to going into a room or coming out of a room, that that action goes from being an action that we're looking for a specific outcome, which is the turning on of the light, to then being habitual, where we just walk into a room and either we instinctively or habitually turn on the light or leaving the room, we turn off the light. And this is usually followed by somebody in the room screaming, Hey, I'm still in here because that's how habitual that action becomes. And while habits are our body and brain's way of automatizing behavior, so it becomes more efficient and we don't have to exert thought thinking about it and then making it happen, it can sometimes become bad as well. And we know all about bad habits and how they are really difficult to get rid of. And so today we'll talk about some defining characteristics of habits
and how maybe we can use this information to form new habits that are good for us. So the first thing that defines habits is their nature or the fact that they are impervious to what's called outcome devaluation. That regardless of now, even if the reward or the initial reward that made that habit happen, if that reward loses its value, those habits still continue. In my case, it might be cheesecake. Initially, I might have liked it because of its taste. But now if I see it in my fridge, I am going to eat it regardless of how full I might be, how I might not feel sick the next day because of how much I ate, but it's become so habitual. And so this outcome devaluation is a good thing when you think about it in the context of Ramadan. In Ramadan, we have the added incentive of this being a holy month and then with the additional rewards that come with the month, especially during the last 10 nights as well. Now, if we can use that month to form new habits, even when that additional reward is gone away, at the end of Ramadan, for example, because of it becoming a habit, that reward or that additional reward no longer applies and Inshallah, you can continue on that habit path for as long as possible. Another thing that's important to consider about when thinking about habits is the fact that a habit, it happens through repetition of a behavior.
But there are some things that can nudge a habit along and make a habit form quicker or more efficiently. One of those things is an unpredicted reward or getting rewarded on an unpredictable schedule where you don't know when the next reward is coming. This, you know, sometimes happens in games and that's how they get you hooked or get you habit forming for games is when the reward is unpredictable and so you continue to play it until you get the desired outcome. And so an example of how this can be applied both during Ramadan but also outside is if, for example, you're trying to establish the habit of praying Fajr in the masjid or praying Fajr on time or whatever it is, you can form a group and this is nothing new. We've been doing call groups and WhatsApp groups forever to try to incentivize behavior. But to use that further advantage of the unpredicted reward, maybe what we can do is through a random number generator, say that every seventh person or eighth person or whatever random numbers will get rewarded when they check in for praying Fajr on time. And so that unpredictable nature of that reward can incentivize that habit further and help you continue with that. With that, Jazakumullah Khayran. Wa-Salaamu Alaikum wa Rahmatullah
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