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The best new habit I picked up in 2013 is flossing daily. But I was weary of calling it a new habit at first because I’d had plenty of false starts when it comes to flossing \u2014 a few days of inspired flossing before it was back to my old routine of only brushing.<\/p>\n
The problem wasn’t building an entirely new routine, it was that I already had<\/em> an established routine that didn’t involve flossing. Plus, the routine already had a cue and reward system (cue: time for bed! reward: minty-fresh mouth!) so it would be significantly harder to cram even more into the routine.<\/p>\n But I’ve been flossing now, every day, for over four months \u2014 and I think the habit is here to stay.<\/p>\n How was I able to successfully build a new flossing habit?<\/strong><\/p>\n For me, it was discovering one simple fact: flossing your teeth is more important than brushing<\/a><\/strong>. If stranded on a desert island, most dentists would give up their toothbrush in favor of floss.<\/p>\n I thought about switching from brushing to flossing, as I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and how it would actually result in a healthier<\/em> mouth. But while I logically knew that this was true, it certainly didn’t seem<\/em>\u00a0healthier. Pepsodent had done a good job training me, as recounted in\u00a0The Power of Habit<\/em><\/a>, and I craved that\u00a0minty just-brushed feeling.<\/p>\n So I brushed my teeth. But when I finished, my mouth somehow didn’t feel as clean as nights past. I had that minty-fresh taste, but I knew my mouth wasn’t as clean as if I had flossed. That one simple fact has ruined me! I had no choice but to floss.<\/p>\n The next day, the same thing happened. I brushed my teeth so that my mouth would be rewarded with a clean feel \u2014 but when that was done, I knew that my mouth was still not as clean as if I had simply flossed. So I flossed again.<\/p>\n This routine continued day after day.\u00a0I’d tell myself that I was just going to brush my teeth \u2014 but when I was done I’d guilt myself into flossing because I wanted the cleanest mouth possible.<\/p>\n I thought that adding flossing to an existing routine would be more difficult than adding a brand new habit, but it was actually easier. I was still chasing the reward of a clean-feeling mouth and already had momentum from brushing my teeth.<\/p>\n All it took was a little bit of knowledge to ruin the reward. Once the habit was disrupted, it was easy to modify the routine into something even better because the foundation was already there.<\/p>\n Sometimes the goal isn’t to build entirely new habits, but to modify your current behaviors to make them more effective.<\/p>\n
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