The development of habits is vital for your brain.
They help to save bandwidth or processing power and they speed up your response to a particular situation.
Many of our habits have been developed unconsciously and are either unwanted or unhelpful. It might come as a surprise to many people, but it is possible to purposely construct habits that move us closer to any goal.
Habits and Systems outperform Goals.
Every. Single. Time.
- Will Newton
It takes more or less 66 days to ingrain a new habit. Especially during this time, it's important to be consistent in consciously running the habit you want to form.
Habit formation follows a fairly predictable course. I've seen different versions of this, but I like author James Clear's version...
The Habit Formation Process
1. Cue - I also refer to this as the "trigger". It's vital for habits to have cues, because it's these that set the habit in motion. The best cues are obvious and easy. That's what makes it so easy for bad habits to become ingrained: Those habits get triggered easily and "practising" those habits often makes them permanent.
2. Craving - This step is another without which no new habit gets going. In the example I used in the video, mobile phone suppliers and, more specifically, app designers have been extremely effective in designing something that plays to our fear of missing out. They've essentially created a way to make us crave looking at the phone by leveraging our desire not to miss out.
3. Response - Fairly obviously, this is when we take action to satisfy the craving.
4. Reward - Having a reward was is another vital aspect of the habit formation process. In fact, if the reward is rewarding enough, the cue will become directly associated with the reward and the habit will be an immensely difficult one to break. Duhigg mentions, in his book, that toothpaste manufacturers added the "fresh minty taste" to toothpaste, not because it was in any way beneficial to the health of users teeth, but to act as a clear reward for the action of brushing one's teeth.
Habit Stacks
Another very powerful concept is that of habit stacks, where one habit builds on the previous one, so that you get even more value for every habit trigger.
The simplest explanation of how to do this is as follows: Once you have an an established habit with a clear cue etc, use the completion of that habit as the cue for the next one.
An example of this would be using the making of a cup of coffee as a trigger to drink more water and using the action of completing the glass of water as the trigger to stretch your calf muscles. You could then create a chain of small actions that you know you should take, all of which follow on from the previous one.
Pattern Breaks
Pattern breaks are another useful concept, used when you want to break an unwanted habit. My example in the video of using "Cancel! Chocolate does not support my goals" is something I have used successfully in a number of situations.
I'd strongly encourage you to create habits instead of goals. Small daily habits will do more to move you towards your desired destination that any lofty goal ever will.
Tasks for this lesson:
1. Ask yourself what habits somebody with the level of health and performance you want would have. Write these down.
2. For each habit, list a trigger (ideally linked to something that you do commonly).
3. Finally, list what would constitute successful execution of each of your new habits. What would be the reward?
Resources:
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