“Chris, where are your bowls?”
“They must be here somewhere. I’m sure I packed them.”
“I can’t find your mugs either.”
(thorough searching)
Crap. I forgot to unload the dishwasher.
My partner and I just moved into a new place, and I, quite brilliantly, forgot to pack up the clean dishes from the dishwasher at my old place. Luckily, it’s only 40 minutes away, and my landlord was kind enough to let me come grab them.
Moving is hectic, stressful, and exhausting. Unforeseen setbacks slow your progress. You try to stay strong in your Stoic principles, but you inevitably become frustrated. Things get lost, things break, or sometimes things just don’t work at all. (I’m looking at you Xfinity.)
But in the end, you’re in a new space, and that means you have the opportunity to create a new home. And, if you capitalize on the moment, you’ve got a chance to design a whole new lifestyle or, at least, a chance to make some minor improvements to your old habits.
There’s actually research to back this up. In this episode of Hidden Brain, Wendy Wood (author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick
) explains how a major disruption in your life is the perfect time to make a major behavioral change. If you want to start or quit a keystone habit, the best time to do it may be right after moving to a new place, starting a new job, or experiencing some other major upheaval.1
For some people, the COVID-induced lockdown was the big change that inspired them to kick off a new project or reimagine their career. For many others, the start of this new school year, marked by distance learning, will serve as a catalyst to develop new habits around executive function, independent learning, and productivity.
But since moving is on my mind, I’ll focus on how you can use that sort of disruption to your advantage.
A new space gives you a chance to play around with the design of your home. Perhaps you’ll have the opportunity to do major things, like the creation of a home gym, an art studio, or a meditation room. Or perhaps you’ll only be able to do minor things, like rearranging furniture to improve your application of The 20-Second Rule.
Since your old habits are tied, in part, to the environment you’re accustomed to, they’ll be a little weaker in your new environment. Many of the cues that used to trigger your bad habits are absent in your new home, at least initially. And that makes moving the perfect time to quit.
For example, after a decade of addiction, I got sober just one week after moving. After living in a house with roommates, I had just moved into an apartment by myself in a different part of town. Oh, and I had recently broken up with a long-term girlfriend, so this was a double-disruption. The emotional turmoil of those changes was difficult, but it also presented me with a blank slate, of sorts. It’s as if my life was an etch-e-sketch drawing that had been shaken vigorously, creating an opportunity to draw something new.
The change I’m going for this time around is less significant but perhaps more relatable. My new space will allow me to better differentiate between the part of my home dedicated to fun and the part dedicated to productivity. My home office will be an entire floor away from the space where we hang out and play games. The one-bedroom apartment where I’d been living for the past four years did not allow this kind of separation of spaces.
My intention is to create a clearer distinction between work time and recreation time. My hope is that this new separation of spaces will both make it easier for me to fully engage with work while I’m in my office and make it easier for me to let go of work when the day is done. Plus, it should support my new habit of not shaking the snow globe before bed.
Now, this idea is not an excuse to procrastinate forever. You don’t have to wait for a major lifestyle disruption to make a major change to your habits, start a big project, or embark on a new path. You can do it right now if you want to.
But if you are experiencing a major disruption, don’t let it go to waste. Use it to start a new chapter in your life. Remember, as the co-creator of your reality, you have the power to write your own story. And when the scene changes, it’s the perfect opportunity for the main character to change too.
1 “Creatures Of Habit: How Habits Shape Who We Are — And Who We Become.” Hidden Brain hosted by Shankar Vedantam. NPR. December 30, 2019.