How to Create Successful Habits That Will Stick
You’re tired.Every time you try to start a new habit, you end up falling off. You had high hopes that this time you would be able to get them to stick.Yet so far, you’ve had no luck.The way to get habits to stick is through implementation intention. What this does is defines a time and a place for the habit at hand.Often, we don’t think very deeply about our habits. We don’t understand them.
The Habit Loop
A habit is made up of three parts. A cue, the behavior, and the reward.To make a habit stick, find or pick a cue that is obvious to you. Then, use implementation intention to follow through on the habit.You’ll start at a specific time, in a specific place, and perform the activity. In the end, you get a reward.Maybe the feeling of accomplishment is enough for you. Otherwise, you may want to choose a special reward for yourself to reinforce your behavior.Perhaps you’re struggling to study and you want to make it a habit. Set a time and place for it to happen. You will study every day at 5 o’clock at your desk.
Setting it in motion
The nice thing about implementation intention is that it sets up the cue and habit for you. At 5 o’clock, you are cued to sit down and study. You want to try and define exactly what the habit is, and studying on its’ own is too vague.You decide for every page of notes you write you get to eat one of your favorite snacks. The snack is your reward and completes the feedback loop. While I generally don’t encourage using foods as a reward, you can use anything.Maybe you buy yourself something nice or go for a walk. Maybe you earned yourself a chapter of your favorite book.By doing this, you will create habits that will stick. You will have a predetermined cue that signals the beginning of your behavior. In the end, you reinforce your behavior with a reward.
Do that often enough and it starts to become habitual. You start to associate your behavior with the reward and you will want to inherently do the task.It will become easier to sit down and start, until one day you find yourself doing it simply because you’re so used to doing it.
Final thoughts
Habits take time to form, but if you understand how they work and how to use them you can transform your life.Once you establish the three parts of a habit, you can apply them to anything.Your life can look entirely different in a year.Imagine being in the best shape of your life.Imagine having a successful startup.Imagine growing into the person you want to become.All of it starts with one single habit. Habits transform lives.
