How To Create New Habits? Get 1% Better Every Day
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity.” — James Clear
Habits allow us to function on a daily basis, and most importantly, save our energy. If we had to relearn and think about what we do every day, we would literally be exhausted and unable to act in a cognitive and productive way. Unfortunately, habits are not always positive, they don’t always help us make our lives easier. Some of our habits are bad, like biting our nails when stressed, putting off chores until the next day, staying up too late, or ordering fast food every night instead of cooking. What if our routines pushed us to accomplish everything we wanted and live the life of our dreams? Wouldn’t that be ideal? To do this, it is important to understand how to create new habits and then be able to change the ones that are holding us back.
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The Process Of Creating A Routine
Because you have established a particular habit in your life, you can also change it. There is a well-known psychological process. The implementation of a ritual follows these three steps, each time:
- Triggering;
- Routine;
- Reward.
A situation or event triggers an impulse. This impulse then triggers a routine based on your habits and the routine finally triggers a reward. To eliminate all bad habits from your life once and for all, you need to change the routine of this process. All you have to do is consciously decide to exchange your habit for something more positive and constructive.
Let’s take an example, the trigger could be a stressful situation, this stressful situation then leads to a rite of smoking a cigarette and then to a reward of relaxing. If you change your routine to something that is better for your health (going for a run, drinking tea, etc.), you turn this bad habit into something good for you.
How To Create Good Habits?
Focus On One Thing At A Time
To create lasting habits, it’s essential to focus on one thing at a time. At first, you won’t immediately see your progress, but once you start adding it to your existing rituals, the results will be visible. Choose a new habit and a time frame. Then, make it your priority for that period.
Link The New Habit To A Trigger
To easily remember your new ritual, you should schedule it after an existing ritual called a trigger. That way, when you have completed your “trigger” action, you know you need to practice your new habit. For example, if you want to get into the habit of meditating every day, you can schedule this activity after your morning shower.
Think About Your Reward In The Long Run
Some actions will give you immediate rewards which can help you stay motivated. For example, if your new activity is to do 10 minutes of tidying every night, the reward will be waking up to a clean house. However, the payoff for some routines is not as obvious. If your new habit is running every day, you may feel discouraged that you don’t immediately see the effects on your body. For this type of ritual, you need to constantly remind yourself why you want to change. Don’t hesitate to surround yourself with inspiration and change your vision board. Habit trackers are also a great way to motivate yourself to follow your new routines.
Don’t Be Discouraged By Your Mistakes
Mistakes are part of the experience. It’s important that you don’t let your shortcomings stop you from practicing your new habit. If you forget to practice it one day, it’s not a big deal. It’s not going to affect your results in the long run, as long as you don’t give up. Let’s face it, sometimes things beyond our control can affect our carefully constructed rituals. The important thing is to bounce back and start over.
Expect Resistance
Remember that your brain likes to repeat the past. Its purpose is to protect you and therefore to keep you in a comfort zone with rules you know. Therefore, when confronted with new methods, it will resist. You have made a decision and you know what is best for you, so face this resistance with determination. Keep the commitments you have made to yourself and hold yourself accountable.
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How Long Does It Take To Implement A New Habit?
Each person is different. It depends on you and your resistance to the new experience. Trust that the more you practice, the easier it gets. Now, it has been widely reported that a habit will take root after 21 days. This theory actually comes from a book (Psycho-Cybernetics), written by an American surgeon (Maxwell Malltz), who drew this conclusion based on the time it took his patients to get used to their new face after a cosmetic operation.
This story of the 21 days remains relative and not applicable to all fields. It seems that very few researchers have seriously studied the subject. However, an experiment was conducted by scientists from a London university college on a sample of 96 people. The result was that the time it takes to adopt a new behavior varies greatly depending on the individual: from 18 to 254 days. If we take the average of these data, we get about 2 months.
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The average person would need about 60 days to change their habits.
In conclusion, adopting new habits requires effort, but also a well-defined objective and a reward. As simplistic as it may sound, our brain works almost like a little doggie that needs to be tamed and educated to move in a specific direction. Except that in this one, there is both the master and the animal 😕. Also, consider that some goals trigger less resistance than others. For example, it will probably take you less time to eat apples more regularly than to become a vegetarian.
