An existing habit is like a rubber band at rest: It just sits there. Modify the habit, however, and you start stretching the band. If you already have four coffees each day, adding a fifth might not do much. The band will be slightly elongated, yet it’ll still stay comfortably where it is.
But if you try to go from zero exercise to running five kilometers a day, chances are, the band won’t have it. You’re stretching it way too far way too quickly, and as any experienced kid knows, rushed rubber band shots rarely land where you want them to. In an instant, the band releases all the energy so it can collapse right back into its original state — just like you’ll collapse right back onto your couch on day two or three of your new habit.
In his book Mastery, George Leonard gives the rubber band of habit a name: homeostasis. “Just think about it: if your body temperature moved up or down by 10 percent, you’d be in big trouble.” In order to maintain countless functions at just the right level, your body needs to be a perfectly self-regulating machine, and it is. As a result, its base case is to keep everything the same. Keep the rubber band at rest.
“The problem is homeostasis works to keep things as they are even if they aren’t very good,” Leonard continues. Resistance to change is universal, even if the change is one you’d benefit from greatly. The rubber band always wants to snap back.
What’s more, “the resistance is proportionate to the size and speed of the change,” Leonard explains. Sleep ten minutes earlier? No problem. Have breakfast two hours later? You might feel as if you’ll starve. Each additional millimeter of pulling the band increases the chance of an imminent, violent reaction. A pop tart binge. An injury that keeps you from running for weeks. Or a mild headache from one coffee too many.
You and I have stretched and formed and moved many a rubber band in our day. Homeostasis or not, we still change all the time. And while small, incremental tweaks are usually the way to go in order to not hurt our hands, sometimes, more drastic measures are needed. A woman moving to a country whose language she doesn’t speak has no choice but to learn, and a single doctor’s order might get you to quit smoking on the spot. It’s good to be mindful of homeostasis, but remember: If you pull it far enough, any rubber band will break — and so will the chains of habit.