Bad Habit To Break

The Difference Between Habit and Ritual May Seem Negligible but the Distinction is Important

Habit has become something of a dirty word in contemporary life, mostly because of the negative associations attached to it such as cigarettes, booze and drugs.

Oh, and if you’re under five, picking your nose, obviously…and sometimes for those over five…

But habit often extends much further into our lives, and in ways that aren’t so dirty. People fall into habitual patterns or routines, such as taking the same train to work in the morning, walking the same route to their local cafe, organising for the school run in the morning.

Many of these kinds of habits are really useful and are a natural reaction to most humans liking certainty in their life. They also make managing life more efficient because they enable us to take the effort out of planning our days or busy lives — no or little thought needs to go into slotting these habitual activities into our life.

These habits essentially become shortcuts or act as an auto-pilot.

Neuroplasticity

However, habits also end up hard-wiring the brain, meaning once we lock them in, it becomes so hard to break them. And in this way, we become set in our ways, so with bad habits, we can end up getting ourselves potentially into a pickle.

This is often where we hear that sexy term “neuroplasticity” thrown about, which is essentially the brain’s capacity to adapt to change. When we push against and break habits, we encourage our brain to be more elastic as we reshape neural pathways to accommodate the change.

Habit vs Ritual

And then you have ritual, which many might argue is not much different from habit.

Here are the definitions:

habit

• an acquired behaviour pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary: the habit of looking both ways before crossing the street.
• customary practice or use: Daily bathing is an American habit.
• a particular practice, custom, or usage: the habit of shaking hands.
• a dominant or regular disposition or tendency; prevailing character or quality: She has a habit of looking at the bright side of things.
• addiction, especially to narcotics (often preceded by the).

ritual

• an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.
• a system or collection of religious or other rites.
• observance of set forms in public worship.
• a book of rites or ceremonies.

So, the definition for ritual distinguishes it as something of a higher order, of having religious implications.

And yet, when you look at the two definitions, strip away the religious connotation and you end up with the same kinda thing, right?

Maybe not.

The Positives of Ritual

This is where I play semantics a little, but more than that, push my case for why ritual is important and useful and habits not so.

I’m a lark, so up early (between 5.30 and 6.00am most mornings), and the day for me kicks off in very ritualistic fashion, namely:

• Some simple yoga stretching in bed
• A shower that ends with a 30-second blast of freezing-cold water (brrr yet but a great way to wake up)
• A walk to my local cafe, which thankfully opens at 6am
• A long-black and a dive into my city’s major newspaper and a look over a couple of other international mastheads

OK, on the surface this might look like a somewhat innocuous routine that’s not so different from what many do each morning, and the long-black is very borderline habitual because: coffee.

But it’s more than that.

While for some it might seem mundane and not overly special, for me it is uncomplicated and systematic, highly enjoyable (well, coffee, so yeah) and has utility (the stretching, the walk, the getting informed about what’s going on) and in the best way helps me prepare for the day ahead.

Admittedly, in some ways, it borders on habit because I prefer not to break this ritual when possible.

But sometimes parts of the ritual are set aside or the whole thing is thrown out for any number of reasons.

And this is where the key difference between habit and ritual kicks in. When I can’t perform my morning ritual, I just roll with it. I don’t feel my life is poorly impacted or have cravings for what I’ve missed — which is the key difference to a habit that isn’t fed, which can get ugly. I also don’t feel my day is out of whack if I can’t take the same route to work or I miss a train I usually take or the joint I go to every day to buy lunch is closed for whatever reason.

In fact, when those kinds of things happen in my day, while they might be mildly frustrating, I also like the challenge of having to push through the frustration and the mini rush of the unknown that comes with having to alter a pattern or habit.

My point?

Maybe it’s time to do a mini audit of your life. Try to work out which aspects of it are habitual and which are ritual. Identify the habits you’d like to challenge and pick one you feel is achievable to shake up and give it a go.

Think about the rituals you love and can distinguish from the habits and own them for the positive they bring.

You can do it!