Key Takeaways

• With self-awareness you can change your daily default habits.
• Your defaults aren’t your fault, but they are your responsibility.
• Changing defaults is difficult, but possible.
• New defaults create new outcomes.

A Default by Any Other Name

An Instagram notification pops up.
It’s a message from your friend.
You open the app to respond.
Twenty minutes later you’re still scrolling and haven’t answered them yet.

It happened before you realized, It wasn’t what you intended to do.
It never is.

That’s the power of default habits.
They’re second nature, ingrained in your subconscious.
Which means they require the most awareness.

It’s annoying to audit how you spend every waking second.
But it’s also an invaluable life skill.

Because just like Annie Dillard famously says “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”

It’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important when you’re so focused on just trying to survive.
You unknowingly embraced identities as you grew up, some that may have subconsciously influenced your decisions to this day.

I’ve spent years telling myself that I’m an emotional eater and that I simply have a major sweet tooth, almost with a backward sense of pride.
But why is that the case? Does that forever have to be true?
What about for you?
Are your daily defaults taking you the direction in life you want to go?
If not, maybe a little audit is in order.

Understanding Defaults

Your future isn’t set in stone.
Your current trajectory doesn’t have to remain your reality.

Humans don’t do what’s best for them, they typically do what’s easiest or most familiar.

Your habits are just a combination of activities influenced by societal, personal, and familial nudges, among many others.
That means if you aren’t intentional about designing your defaults, your environment will design them for you.

Here is where the Jim Rohn quote really shines, because who you spend your time with will influence who you become no matter what you may think to the contrary.

In a simple social example, if your five friends smoke, you’ll most likely be the sixth, this is used to explain how subtle the nudges around you can unknowingly affect you.

Over time their behavior starts feeling normal.
Then it becomes expected.
Then it becomes your default.

For 20+ years I’ve basically been a manga addict. Ever since middle school, I’ve read almost daily.
I’ve even included it when envisioning my future plans.
There may as well be a wedding date planned.

Yet recently, as my priorities have changed, I’ve begun to see the opportunity costs from my old defaults. I realized that some changes needed to be made.

I am not saying Manga, Video games, Movies, Social Media or other forms of modern entertainment are bad, life is tough and joy should be found wherever possible. I’m going to continue enjoying manga but not in the same capacity.

But like anything else, it’s best in moderation.

Social media and gaming companies spend billions of dollars figuring out how to keep your attention for as long as possible.

Either you design your defaults, or someone will do it for you.

Changing Your Defaults

The status quo bias is when people stick with what’s familiar even when different choices may lead to better outcomes.
It’s fair to say by now you’ve developed some familiar routines that have worked at least fairly well for your life so far.
But remember that previously familiar doesn’t mean currently essential.

In essentialism, the discussion of defaults can be boiled down to remembering three things:
1. You have the power to choose
2. Only a few things really matter in life
3. You can do anything but you can’t do everything

Using your environment, you can add or reduce friction points for habits to help nudge you in the right direction.

A game changer for me was listening to helpful audiobooks during walks, drives, and workouts instead of just music.

Steven Huskey coach and owner of theexceleratedlife.com put it well, calling them default settings, “Once you become aware of them, you will no doubt identify some defaults that would be beneficial to update or to change. Some may have worked for you in the past but are now outdated. Some may be limiting you, making it harder to reach a goal or become the person you want to be.” (Huskey, 2020)

When I realized how much of my life manga was going to take up at this rate, a change had to be made.
What’s important is taking time to play around with your day and find what works for you.

Make it easy to pursue the good and hard to overindulge in the bad.

New Defaults, New You

Change is scary, especially when changing emotionally charged habits.
Since your habits are tied into your identity, you’re trying to change yourself.
You can expect some friction from that version of yourself for a while.

Every time you choose a new behavior, you’re reinforcing a pathway in your brain. At first those pathways are weak, which is why change feels awkward and unnatural. But repetition strengthens them. Eventually what once required effort starts to feel automatic, just like your old defaults once did.

When it feels futile, think back to the toy you wouldn’t let out of your sight as a kid and where it is now.
Eventually you moved on, as you will from this.

When it gets hard, keep this Ralph Waldo Emerson quote in mind.

You are the architect of your own life.
It’s important to design the life that you want, and that requires accepting that you may not be on your preferred trajectory.

And that’s ok, because you can change that.

I am still in the middle of changing my defaults.
I still enjoy manga, and YouTube a bit too much sometimes.
But patience, I see the progress, even if it’s slow.

Don’t be scared as you create a new reality for yourself.
Don’t be too surprised when you’re just as excited reading a new book as you were playing a new video game.

Let me know in the comments which defaults you’d like to change, maybe we can come up with a plan together.

Citations

Huskey, Steven. “Change Your Default Settings”. The Excelerated Life 06 11, 2020. https://theexceleratedlife.com/change-your-default-settings/

Clear, James. “How to Optimize Your Daily Decisions”. Jamesclear.com https://jamesclear.com/design-default