How to make (or break) any habit
Smoking, fitness, language-learning, alcohol abuse, self-talk, proactive productivity, disorganization, daily meditation, hobbies, reckless driving, gratitude…
Habits, both good and bad, are grooves carved into your brain’s neural network that eventually become hard-wired, like tracks for a train to run on. Once those tracks are laid, the train runs smoothly towards its destination. But not all destinations are great places to go.?
The good news is it’s possible to reroute those tracks; though it takes consistent, mindful work. The best time to begin? Today. And since you’re here reading this, it looks like you’re off to a strong start!
Here is how to make or break any habit.
[Check out Brainscape’s full original article ‘How to build strong study habits’ for 11 super useful tips that can be applied to making or breaking any habit, including studying.]
Start small to stay motivated
Whatever your ultimate goal is, start small: a shade smaller than you think you can manage. Why? Because you want to make it relatively easy to succeed, which will then keep you motivated. If your daily goal is hard to maintain, you’ll soon fall off the wagon. The motivation of early success, on the other hand, will carry you forward and then you can ramp up the intensity.
Let’s say you’re a couch potato. Sure, if chased by a bear, you could probably run five miles … but consistently, every single day for weeks and weeks until it’s a habit? Chances are you’re gonna give up after the third day of pure slog. It’s just too hard.
Instead, start off your journey of "un-couch-potatoing" yourself by keeping your daily exercise goal conservative; say, a five-mile walk or a one-mile jog twice per day. You can (and should) overshoot it if you have the energy but if you just do the walk or the shorter run, you’ve still succeeded, which feels amazing and provides the motivation to do it all over again the next day.
Be consistent: don’t break the chain
It’s often said that getting started is the hard part but when it comes to habits the opposite is often true, too. Through sheer will power and concentration, we can change a behavior for one, two, maybe even three weeks. But then week four rolls around and suddenly we start making excuses for shirking our new habits.?
One slip doesn’t reroute the entire train. But one slip is seldom one slip: it’s a doorway right back to where you started because the disappointment and demotivation pushes us to seek comfort in old, bad patterns.?
This is why a crucial yet HARD step in making or breaking any habit is to be consistent and keep the chain going even if you’re only doing a fraction of what you originally set out to do. If you’re too tired for gym, just do a couple of sets of push-ups; if you can’t stand the thought of a side salad with your steak, order a baked potato instead of fries; or if you’re not in the mood for working, just do 15 minutes.?
Even these tiny efforts contribute to your goal. Plus, you're proving to yourself that you're the type of person who keeps your habits alive. And with every day you do this, the neural pathways in your brain become deeper and deeper, making it more comfortable to resist bad temptations and embrace positive, productive habits. Within weeks or months, what felt impossible to do at the start becomes easy until, one day, your train runs swiftly and effortlessly to happy destinations.
Pro Tip: Use apps like Don’t Break the Chain or Done to create a chain for your daily habit.
Enable yourself
In other words: make it easy for yourself to succeed.
Every day, before you go to bed at night, do whatever prep work you can to make your new habit easier to accomplish the next day. Enable yourself.
This prep work, which seriously takes all of 5-10 minutes of your time, eliminates a lot of the inertia you can feel when you’re trading short-term “hardship” for long-term rewards, which is really what good habits are all about.
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Shamelessly bribe yourself
Or, as we like to put it: train your brain with gratification.
There are ancient, powerful parts of your brain that crave instant gratification. It doesn’t matter how lofty your goals are: if they don’t get their hit of dopamine now, they’re not interested in helping you succeed in the long run. However, you can Pavlovian train your brain by shamelessly bribing it into productivity.
In his foundational experiment, Ivan P. Pavlov was able to connect two stimuli in a dog’s brain: the ringing of a bell and a bowl of delicious dog food. By the end of the experiment, the connection between the sound of the bell and a meal was so strong, Pavlov’s dogs would start to salivate when they heard the bell, even if they couldn’t see or smell any food.
Here’s a more human example:
I tricked my brain into enjoying running on the treadmill by watching my favorite TV show while doing it (on an iPad, which I’d perch on the treadmill display). The trick, however, was to ONLY ever allow myself to watch that show when on the treadmill. If I wanted to “find out what happened next” I’d have to go to the gym and put in a 30 to 45 minute run.
This Pavlovian training quite literally helped my brain establish a positive association with the treadmill and the satisfaction of watching an episode of my favorite show trumped the strain and sweat of running.
Learn about, and leverage your best time to be productive?
Establishing a new habit takes mental (and physical) effort. Effort requires energy and focus. And energy and focus vary throughout the day depending on your chronotype.?
A chronotype is a person's natural inclination with regard to the times of day when they prefer to sleep versus when they’re most alert and focused. For example, some people are “night owls” while others are “morning larks”. (There are other categories, too, so check out ‘Is waking up early bullsh*t?’ to discover yours!)
And so, another crucial step to making or breaking any habit is to figure out when you are at your most alert, focused, and productive and leverage those peak hours to crush your daily goals, whether they’re physical or mental in objective.?
If you’re a morning lark, get up early and get the hardest stuff on your to-do list done first. Then, in your less energetic hours, you can turn your attention to the more menial tasks and responsibilities.
Of course, not all habits can be contained to a certain number of hours per day. Some challenges, like quitting smoking, require you to stay consistent from the moment of waking to falling asleep again. However, if you can determine the times of day that you’re at your lowest energy and focus, you can make sure that you keep yourself away from temptation at those times.
Understanding your chronotype is pivotal to getting the most out of yourself, every day, without forcing yourself to be productive or to resist temptation when you’re worn out so figure yours out and use it to your advantage!
A final word on habit building
Good habits trade short-term “hardships” for long-term rewards. (i.e. getting up early to exercise for overall improved physical and mental health).
Bad habits trade long-term rewards for short-term pleasures. (i.e. playing XBox instead of studying for an important certification or exam.)
It’s pretty simple math, and yet the day-to-day challenge of rerouting long-established patterns of behavior and thinking can feel as hard as building a completely new railroad from where you are right now to where you ideally would like to be.
Just remember that the challenge right in front of you isn’t to do the WHOLE thing right now: it isn’t to lose 100 pounds or quit smoking or work your way up to a six-figure salary or become a yogi or whatever. It’s to make the right choices TODAY. Just for today. Just right now, at this moment.
Don’t worry about all the other moments to come. Get it right in the "here and now", and you’ll eventually rise to the challenge you’ve set for yourself.
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