Forming Good Habits – The Easy Path to the Good Life

Nail biting, fidgeting, smoking, watching too much TV…everyone has some kind of bad habit that they would like to break and, if possible, put a good habit in its place. Don’t worry, help is at hand! Once we understand the nature of habits, we can continue to influence our own psychological behavior and set out toward a lifetime of positive habits that actually do more good than harm.

Studies reveal that as much as 45% of what we do every day is habitual. Most of us perform the same actions almost without thinking in the same place or at the same time every day, usually due to subtle cues. When we think of the word ‘habit’ our minds tend to jump to less pleasant patterns of behavior like the ones mentioned above. But clothes don’t have to be bad. In fact, creating good habits is essential for success. Adopting certain habits like exercise, healthy eating, and meditation can be transformative.

The nature of habits

Through experimentation and observation, social scientists have learned that there is power in linking certain behaviors to habitual cues. For example, the urge to check your email or reach for the bag of chips is probably a habit with a specific prompt.

The researchers found that most signals fall into four broad categories: a specific location or time of day, a certain series of actions, particular moods, or the company of specific people. The urge for French fries, for example, probably occurs after you’ve gotten home from work, maybe you’ve had a bad day, and you’re watching TV.

Dr. Wood, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke, studied exercise habits among students who transferred from one university to another. When the locations remained similar (the new school had an outdoor track like the old one, for example), the students continued to run regularly. But if the tracks were too different, his exercise routine often slowed down.

In another experiment, in which researchers were studying smokers, those who wanted to quit were more than twice as successful if they started quitting on vacation, when they were in a different context, away from people and places that act as triggers.

According to Dr. Wood, “Habits are formed when memory associates specific actions with specific places or moods. If you regularly eat chips while sitting on the couch, after a while, seeing the couch will automatically prompt you to search for the Doritos. These associations are sometimes so strong that you have to replace the couch with a wooden chair for the diet to be successful.”

Habits, whether good or bad, make us who we are.

The key is to control them. If you understand how habits work, you can use this knowledge to create good habits, and this can change your life.

Here are some tips inspired by Scott Young to help you create great clothes:

1. A habit for 30 days. Try to focus on one change you want to make for 30 days. Thirty days is roughly the time it takes for a behavior to become conditioned, to become a habit.
2. Replace lost necessities. You can’t stop habits without replacing the needs they satisfy. For example, cutting back on television probably means you need to find a new way to relax and get information. In this case, you could try going for a walk and then read the newspaper. But make sure you don’t substitute one bad habit for another, like giving up smoking just to overeat.
3. Avoid bad habit triggers. As much as possible, try to avoid the triggers that you associate with your bad habits. And if you’re trying to build good habits, you can use the trigger effect to your advantage. For example, buy a smoothie maker and put it on your counter to help you make a healthy smoothie for breakfast every morning.
4. Comments on the balance. The difference between long-term change and giving up on day 31 is feedback balance. If your change creates more pain in your life than joy, it will be hard to stick with it. Find diets, exercise routines, financial plans and work routines that work for you in the long run.
5. Get leverage. Give a friend a hundred dollars on the condition that they return it to you only when you have served 30 days without fail. Make a public commitment to everyone you know to stick to it. Also offer yourself a reward if you do it for a month (and you do it every month).
6. keep it simple Your change should involve one or two rules, not a dozen. Exercising three times a week for at least 40 minutes is easy to follow. Designing an elaborate yoga, rock climbing, and swimming workout routine on specific days of the week is tricky. Complexity is a headache and you could be setting yourself up for failure if other things come up like travel, meetings, etc.
7. One habit at a time. Don’t try to change everything at once. This is too much pressure. Introduce a habit and work on it until it becomes automatic and then move on to the next habit. The successful introduction of one habit gives you the confidence to move on to the next.
8. Consistency is the key. The point of a habit is that it requires no thought. Make sure your habit is as consistent as possible and repeats every day for 30 days. This will ensure that your habit is properly conditioned.