6 things to keep in mind when creating powerful habits
We all want good habits but struggle to stick to them. Like New Year’s resolutions, we start off well intentioned and motivated only to give up a few days or weeks later.
According to the experts, the reasons people fail to create habits are for the following reasons:
They don’t really want to do the habits and don’t believe the habits will actually work.
They underestimate the power of habit creation.
They don’t make the habits automatic.
They make the habits too big.
They don’t anchor them.
They don’t celebrate.
They don’t make them pleasurable.
They give up entirely.
They rely on motivation alone.
Believe in the habit
Since the age of 14, I drank black coffee. It became my personal theme, my identity. After all, one of my favorite songs was “Black Coffee” by Ella Fitzgerald.
Researching the benefits of giving up coffee, I found just as many websites touting the benefits of coffee as its dangers.
In the book Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey show how beliefs and mind-sets — aka immunities — can prevent important changes from happening. According to research, only one in seven heart patients actually make the habit changes necessary to save their lives. Why? All seven have a desire to keep on living. So, why do the six not change? The answer lies in their belief system.
Identify the habits you want. Make sure that the habits you choose are things you want to do, not the “shoulds” or “coulds.” These are things that give you pleasure and that would increase your energy.
Get clear on your belief around the habit you want to create. Why do you want to make the change? What will the change bring you? What will you have to give up to create this habit?
Realize the power of habit creation
There is power in creating habits. If we start taking our medication regularly or stop smoking, these habits can save our lives. Also, know that habits can actually change your brain. In his popular book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg recounts the story of an unhappy, overweight woman who hated her job and smoked cigarettes. She changed her habits by moving to the desert, quit smoking, and picking up jogging. One year later, brain scans showed actual physical changes. The same went for alcoholics who replaced alcohol with frequent AA meetings. These recovered alcoholics were able to show brain changes in their scans as well.
Make them automatic
Habits can simplify your life in that they free you up from making too many decisions. The part of the brain that makes decisions, the prefrontal cortex, gets tired as the day goes on. David Rock in Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long describes the importance of the prefrontal cortex and its diminishing energy throughout the day. If you use up all your decision-making energy on unimportant things, you won’t have any energy left for important things during the course of your day.
The best example of someone who understands this concept of saving decision-making energy is founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who is famous for wearing grey T-shirts every day. He says he does this to minimize the number of decisions he makes in order to save energy for important things, like “serving more than a billion people.”
Duhigg also cites the rat in the maze experiment as proof that by automating a habit, we save brain energy. A rat and a piece of chocolate were put at opposite ends of a maze. The scientists monitored the mouse’s brain activity while it sniffed and looked for the chocolate. The brain activity was significant during this search. The scientists repeated the experiment over and over again and noted that the rat’s mental activity decreased each time he was put in the maze, as his brain got used to the process. After some time, the mouse whisked through the maze as if on autopilot, his brain barely making any waves.
Wouldn’t you like your morning routine to be like that… easy, as if on autopilot?
Start small and anchor them
Dr. BJ Fogg, a Stanford University teacher and behavior scientist, has studied habits and created what is known as the “Tiny Habits” program. His premise is that habits that are small and easy to accomplish don’t require a lot of motivation. On the other hand, habits that are difficult require a lot of motivation.
Any behavior you do requires three things, according to Fogg. You need motivation, ability and a prompt (B=MAP).
A prompt is a behavior you already do reliably every day. And this is where you anchor your new habit. So let’s say you always go to the bathroom first thing in the morning and then you flush. This act of flushing could be your prompt for a habit, like weighing yourself or meditating.
Ability is related to how difficult or simple the behavior is to do. For example, if you aspire to eat less chocolate, you could just not have it in the house. Or you could put it on the top shelf in your kitchen, requiring you to pull out a step stool to reach it. You would be decreasing your ability to reach it and hence eat it.
Ability is made up of money, time, physical effort, mental effort, and routine. You can increase or decrease your ability by making the habit smaller or simpler. If a habit requires money and you don’t have it, the behavior will likely not happen. If you don’t have the time for a certain activity, it also will not happen.
Next steps
1. Write a list of 20 possible habits you could create and then narrow the list down to 10.
My list looked something like this:
Meditate 20 minutes every morning upon waking
Do 20 minutes of exercise every morning (start with 5 push ups)
Take vitamins and minerals
Drink 1 liter of water minimum
Journal each morning
Cook green leafy vegetables every evening
Be in bed by 10pm (to wake up by 6am… I need 8 hours of sleep)
Walk minimum 10,000 steps per day
Practice the piano each day for 20 minutes
Read 10 pages in a book each evening
2. Now scale them back to 30 seconds or less. So, the scaled back version of my list would look like this:
Meditate for 30 seconds every morning upon waking
Do 2 push ups
Place my vitamins and minerals into a bowl the night before
Fill my water bottle
Drink one sip from the water bottle
Pick up my journal and my pen and write one sentence
Buy already washed leafy greens
Head into the bathroom to brush my teeth.
I put my shoes and jacket on
Sit at the piano and play one measure
Pick up book and read one sentence in a book each evening
3. Pick a prompt or a behavior you already and reliably do each day and find its trailing edge. Here are some examples: eyes opening, flushing the toilet after going to the bathroom, closing the refrigerator door, walking into the kitchen, closing your laptop, getting up from the table, picking up that coffee cup, or stepping into your house.
4. Pair the prompt with the scaled back habit.
After my eyes open, I will meditate for 30 seconds.
After I flush the toilet, I will do 2 push ups.
After I start the dishwasher, I will place my vitamins and minerals into a bowl the night before.
After I walk into the kitchen, I will fill my water bottle.
After I close my laptop, I will take one sip from the water bottle.
After I pick up my coffee cup and head back to bed, I will pick up my journal and my pen and write one sentence.
After I open the refrigerator door at dinner time, I will pull out my already purchased washed leafy greens.
After I walk the dog, and lock the front door and turn off the lights, I will head to the bathroom to brush my teeth (start my evening bedtime routine)
After I get dressed, I put my shoes and jacket on.
After I leave the kitchen, I sit at the piano and play one measure.
After I get in bed, I pick up a book and read one sentence in a book each evening.
5. Choose three habits to start with. Creating habits is trial and error. Don’t be afraid to modify your list as time goes on. Make sure you pick habits that have an impact on your life and that satisfy your aspirations. Most importantly, make sure these are habits you REALLY want to do. Eliminate any shoulds.
“I believe you should work on multiple habits at once because that’s how you learn what matters,” Fogg writes. “There’s a reason you work on three new behaviors rather than just one. When you focus on three new behaviors, you learn how habits work.”
6. Celebrate. Sing a song, do a victory dance, do a fist bump, smile, or give yourself a thumbs up. This gives you a dopamine hit. Fogg says that celebrating your behavior or habit makes it automatic, or wires it in. You do this by celebrating immediately after the 30 second behavior. It’s even better if the habit brings you intrinsic rewards.
Besides giving us a sense of control, habits can feel good. Starting off the day with a healthy delicious breakfast is pleasurable. A meditation practice — once established — creates clarity and relaxation. Exercise feels great once the body gets used to it.
The reward is key, experts agree. Whatever habit you adopt needs to bring you a similar pleasurable reward to the habit you are trying to replace.
