The Virtue Vase
As many of you may be receiving flowers today, I thought this a fantastic opportunity to post about what I call The Virtue Vase. I have developed a process that accesses your reward system. This method is also known as a “brain hack” and inspired by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's book Thinking Fast and Slow.Many processes have been developed based on this research focus on changing bad habits. I prefer to put a positive spin on it and have reframed it as creating good habits. You can use this process to develop good habits around absolutely anything in your life: weight loss, food cravings, over drinking, your reactions when you feel triggered. You name it.The way this works is by tapping into the idea of instant gratification vs. long term goals. The primal or reptilian brain always wants instant gratification. Most of us make 90% of our decisions with our primal brain. Which means we are giving into reward and the pleasure of the moment. But that is unfair to our higher level brain which knows these habits aren’t good for us. Not eating cake, not exercising one day, not snapping at your spouse, not having that 3rd drink...those good habits do not have to satisfy instant gratification the way giving in to the vices do. So we need to hack into the brain. Trick it into using long term thinking (slow thinking) for everyday decisions that typically use the short term/fast thinking. We need to plan ahead in terms of the habit we want to cultivate. Get a clear glass vase that will hold at least 100 glass beads. Get beads in a color you love. I use red. Put the vase somewhere you will readily see it.
Step 1
Write down exactly what you want to happen in terms of the good habit for tomorrow. You have to write it down. So for instance, “I will eat only healthy food tomorrow” or “I will respond without anger tomorrow.” or “I will only have two glasses of wine at dinner tomorrow.” or “When we got to the fancy Italian restaurant with the amazing cheesy pasta, I will order the salmon.” This is making a promise to yourself. Holding you accountable for your actions in the future. This is using your higher brain to PLAN a good habit.
Step 2
Do what you promised yourself you would do.
Step 3
When you arrive at tomorrow and have an urge to eat ice cream, or snap a response in anger or have a third glass of wine or order that cheesy pasta, you are going to allow the urge/craving/impulse to be there. Give yourself 10 minutes. Don’t try to think of something else. Really focus on it. Use Unitasking here. And do not react to it.
Step 4
Put a bead in the vase. If you are not at home, bring some beads with you and move them from one pocket to the other or from one part of your purse to the other.
Step 5
Track what you’ve done. So if you gave in to the urge/craving/impulse you aren’t going to add a bead, but you aren’t going to take one out either. You are going to write down what you did. “I ate ice cream.” or “I let myself get angry.” or “I had a 3rd glass of wine at dinner.” or “I ate the cheesy pasta.” Write down anything that was not part of your promise.
Step 6
Repeat until you get to 100 beads. If at the end of this process you feel like you need more work, or you want to lose more weight, just empty the vase and start all over until you feel like it is a good habit you don’t have to think about anymore. Like brushing your teeth or showering. You don’t debate with yourself about it. You just do it.
Your primal reptilian brain will LOVE seeing this progress. It loves accumulation. You now have a way to REWARD the good habits until they become second nature. It does not make sense to your long term thinking brain that this could possibly work. But this is a very powerful tactic. It is a game changer.Every bead in that vase represents accomplishment. It represents all the junk food you didn’t eat, all the nasty comments you didn’t make, all the wine you didn’t drink, all the unhealthy dinners you didn’t order, etc.If you want my guidance it going through this process, please reach out to me. I am offering a 6-week program just about this process. Enjoy Mother’s Day! Whether you are a mother or not. I think this day is for everyone. After all, we all have mothers!