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I think you’ll agree with me when I say:
We all would love to have an awesome morning routine, daily workout, eat healthy and be able to read 1-2 books.
How about adding me time or time to meditate to the mix and spending less time in front of screens?
Yes, having these habits would be incredible. If only it was easier done than said…
But what if it’s only hard in our mind and change is easier than we think?
Well, it turns out you can dramatically increase your chances of successfully developing habits by learning how habits are formed and then using it to build or break any habit.
In today’s blog, I will show you exactly how you can build healthy habits and make them stick for life.
All backed by science.
(Chapter 1)
WHAT IS HABIT?
DEFINITION OF HABIT
There are many different definitions of habits. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines habit as:
The American Journal of Psychology defines a habit as “a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience.”
James Clear, throughout his newest book ‘Atomic Habits‘ (one of my favourite books), provides at least 4 different definitions and here are 3 I’ve highlighted myself:
Habits are compound interest of self-improvement.
A habit is a routine or behavior that is performed regularly – and, in many cases, automatically.
A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.
And if you’re really asking me to come up with my own definition, here it is: habit is a behavior pattern that we perform automatically, without thinking.
BENEFITS OF HABITS
Undoubtedly, habits are way cooler than we think.
It saves us mental energy we would otherwise spend on making every single decision…. (Bonus video: Stop Wasting Time by Planning Your Energy: https://youtu.be/wF4Rs_d9voc)
Just imagine, each time you wake up having to think which eye to open first or which leg to use to step out of the bed…Luckily, we don’t have to and it’s all thanks to habits.
It’s literally an internal mechanism our brains developed to optimize our day-to-day operations.
Our lives consist of various small and big habits we do throughout the day. Hence ultimately, habits are what forms our personality, lifestyle, health, and even our beliefs.
Luckily, habits are not some sort of software that gets installed in our internal computers and cannot be updated, reinstalled or removed altogether.
Habits form after we do or think something repeatedly, so we have the power to change and create them if we understand how are they formed.
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine”.
John C. Maxwell (So Good!)
(Chapter 2)
HOW HABITS ARE FORMED
It is quite simple:
ACTION + REPETITION = HABIT
We are what we repeatedly do.
When we perform a certain action our brain performs thousands of different calculations and connections to make sense of it.
When we repeat the same action over and over, this human computer in our heads recognizes it and looks for ways to
optimize the connections, in order to preserve energy for the ‘unknown’, while marking something as ‘known’.
Credit: James Clear
This is exactly how you develop a routine and a habit.
The more times you repeat a certain action, the stronger your habit becomes and the
easier it gets to perform that certain activity associated with it.
The good news is, that with each action performed it gets a little easier. As long as you do it regularly.
(Chapter 3)
THE HABIT LOOP
hThe concept of a habit loop was first introduced back in 1937 by B.F. Skinner, an
American psychologist in his paper ‘The Behavior of Organisms’ and described as stimulus + response.
Later, Charles Duhigg popularized this concept in his NY Times bestseller
‘The Power of Habit’. In that awesome book, he presents a habit loop formula,
that consists of CUE + ROUTINE + REWARD.
WHAT IS A CUE?
A cue is something that triggers a certain action or thought in your brain.
Something that tells you that “now is time to do this and that”.
It could be anything – a place, time of the day, location, smell, sound, emotion.
For example, A CUE could be the smell of a bakery, which makes you think of that delicious croissant.
Or a certain hour of the day, sending a signal to your brain that it is lunchtime and you should be hungry by now.
WHAT IS A ROUTINE?
A Routine is an actual behavior, ritual, action you perform. A routine could be physical, emotional or mental.
This is the action that will turn into the habit once performed frequently enough.
For example, your ROUTINE will be meditating, exercising, reading a book, drinking a glass of water.
WHAT IS A REWARD?
A Reward is a treat you give yourself whenever you successfully finish the routine.
It sends a positive signal to your brain saying ‘Doing this feels good, we should do more of it!’.
A reward could be anything that makes you feel good. Ideally, something that is related to our
primal needs of relaxing, socializing, food or playing. Or, it could also be a simple (but powerful!)
celebratory action you do immediately after completing the habit.
Behaviour Scientist BJ Fogg recommends celebrating your achievement (“reward”) with a physical movement
such as clapping your hands, celebratory dance, yelling something out loud like “You nailed it”, “Good job!”
and/or imagining a roaring crowd rooting for you.
If the reward is bigger, for example, a new book, you could establish a token economy technique, as developed
by B.F. Skinner.
Here you reward yourself for each completed
action (e.g., each meditation session).
Once you have collected a set amount of tokens (say 15 tokens), you can redeem them with a new book.
BONUS TIP #1:
BUILD UPON EXISTING ROUTINE
To succeed, you should focus on your existing habit and routines you already have.
It will be much easier to develop new habits when you build them upon existing routines.
That way you will be more certain not to miss your “cue”. Say you brush your teeth every morning.
This is a habit you have formed over years and you do it almost automatically.
Let’s take this habit and build upon it – let’s use “teeth brushing” as a cue for your daily morning meditation practice.
Meaning, as soon you brush your teeth, it will send a signal to your brain to meditate.
And since you brush your teeth every morning, you will naturally get a daily reminder to meditate.
BONUS TIP #2:
IMPLEMENTATION INTENTIONS
Another way to think about it is by establishing a personal “If-then” plan (implementation intentions) for your actions.
This concept was introduced by psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer, who in his research found out that people
who have a clear plan of how and when they intend to perform certain actions are much more likely to succeed.
The “if” represents the cue that triggers you to do a certain action, and “then” is your routine – the particular
routine/habit you are trying to build up. In the example of meditation, your statement would be
the following: “If I’m brushing my teeth in the morning, then I will meditate for x minutes”.
(Chapter 4)
HOW TO BUILD AND BREAK HABITS
coming soon….