How to Make Success a Habit

In this episode of The Savvy Dentist Podcast Dr Jesse Green is joined by Dr. Gina Cleo. 

Dr. Gina Cleo is an expert when it comes to habits. With a a PhD in habit research, what she doesn't know about habits isn't worth knowing. 

In today's episode Dr Jesse & Dr Cleo discuss what habits actually are, and how to differentiate habits from behaviours. 

They dig deep into the psychology and neuroscience behind how habits are formed, how to install healthy habits, and how to uninstall those habits that no longer serve us.

The pair also talk about the difference between habits and addiction, how to install workplace habits, how to create a culture based on the habitual way of doing things in an intentional way rather than by default. 

Dr. Gina Cleo is one of the world’s leading experts in habits and is passionate about translating scientific evidence into simple, actionable strategies to help improve health, wellness, mindset, and lifestyle-related habits – long-term.

[06:17] - Most people know what to do, but they don’t always do what they know is best. Why? The biggest factor is ‘their values’. How much value we might place on something. So if somebody places a lot of value on their dental hygiene, they're going to put in the effort to floss their teeth and brush twice a day, but if they value something like their time more, they don't value their dental hygiene as much. [08:12] - What is the difference between a habit, and a behaviour? Because they are very different! [13:20] - The secret sauce to creating a habit that sticks and creates lasting change is consistency. Dr Cleo explains how this happens. [17:43] - Our brain is only capable of making up to three changes at one time. However the research suggests it is more productive for creating change and forming a new habit to simply focus on one thing at a time. High achievers struggle to focus on one habit forming thing at a time as they generally feel it is tedious and not enough of a challenge. [20:53] - What's the relationship between habit and addiction? [25:00] - If we want to install organisational habits, and we've got a team of five or 10 or 50 or a hundred people. How do we get all our team onto the same page? [28:47] - We need to be behaviorally flexible, your team will respond really differently to different styles of communication. It’s important to understand your team and understand how they're going to respond to the way that you speak to them. If you automate the way that you interact with your staff, it's not going to work.