Habits are a specific way you act or what you tend to do on a regular basis without much thought. It’s your overall tendencies of what you do that allows you to be on autopilot so you can think of other things. Since the average decisions made in a day is about 35,000 and after about 800 of them the quality of those decisions declines. Those habits that you form can come in handy as they save you time and energy or it can set you back quite a bit.
It is estimated that over 40% of our daily activities are habitual. Many things that we do we might not realize that we do them. Things like washing your hands before and after using the bathroom or eating can make a difference in keeping you healthy. Or things like complaining and blaming when things don’t go your way can be a hole that you dig yourself into that sets you back. Habits are the foundation for everything that you do that will determine your future.
You are the one that determines which habits you form so it is very important to develop ones that empower you. Habits are formed because they are efficient where you don’t have to give it much thought. You can go about your day a bit smoother, or it at least gives a feeling of it. Habits are formed by learning and repetition and those that you develop are because it served a purpose to what is you are striving for.
So a habit of complaining could be to lessen the blow of things not turning out well or the habit of reading is because you want to gain more knowledge. Your thoughts will set in motion certain behaviors that will be triggered by certain things. So in the case of reading when you are not familiar with something or you want more information, your thought will probably be I need to know and your behavior is to investigate and this is done through reading.
How habits form you
When you recall or envision something, you’ll react as if it’s real because your mind will perceive it which will affect your body giving it a greater sensation. So when you think about stressful things you trigger a state of stress that makes you defensive and reactive, looking for how to survive. Surviving is about just getting by right now and that can compromise the ability to thrive. The more time spent being in this stressful state the less you will excel at what you intend to do.
Knowing this you can form a feeling of calmness in intense situations. Where if things get tricky or overwhelming you can get to a place of simplicity where you tell yourself, take deep slow breaths, focus on one thing at a time. Having these reminders where you can repeat it to yourself eventually you're going to ingrain it to where you can better manage stressful situations. Having the ability to relax your mind is also going to relax your body where you can avoid feeling tense.
This allows you to be nimbler so you can maneuver your way quickly to better handle yourself instead of acting out of panic. You'll be a lot more balanced so you can see things with greater perspective that allows you to thrive. So eventually what you get is an increase in stamina so that you can handle a lot more things while further developing your composure.
When we are tired or overloaded, we are more likely to fall into our habits whether positive or negative because it goes back to being efficient. It’s about reverting to what we default to. Think about when you're tired and you're not sure what to eat, you're more likely to go with something that you're very familiar and comfortable with and that's convenient for you so it could be a bowl of cereal or leftovers from the night before.
When you know what your habits are you have a better chance of managing them. You can recognize which ones are helping or hurting you and focus on eliminating those bad ones or at least minimizing them and replacing them with other ones that are helpful. This is going to be very crucial in these times that you're under an intense amount of stress because you can count on them being reliable in those times that you're not at your best.
Take the time to look at what you do daily from the moment you wake up such as what's the first thing you do, how do you set up your day and how do you go about your day, how do you end your day. What is the hardest part of your day and how do you handle it? Are you satisfied with the behaviors that you display? What behaviors are you not happy with and how can you eliminate them? What would you like to incorporate that you can control so you can make your day a lot smoother? Taking the time to evaluate what goes on in your day and how you handle yourself is a very proactive way to improve your overall experience. Most of us would like to have a lot smoother days and this starts with having helpful habits.
Start small to form habits
To develop the habits that you want begin with small specific actions and you have a better chance of it becoming habitual. Just like goals they need to be very clear, so you know what it is exactly that you're striving for. Maybe one of your goals is to form better habits but if you leave it at that that it is too vague and it's so hard to measure that leaves a lot out of confusion.
A common thing that we all experience is adversity and when you can create habits to better handle that, you set yourself up for great things. Small and specific actions in a case like this would be each time I experience adversity I will remain calm by rubbing my hands together with some force for 30 seconds to release some of the tension or anxiety that I feel. Action like this that's very simple to follow increases your likelihood of it sticking.
You eliminate all the unnecessary things that might seem like they’re needed but really what is simple is what's best. The less that you have to focus on the more energy you have to divert to do it exceptionally well. And just focus on that small action where you vividly tell yourself what you will do. Eventually what will happen is you will probably not notice when it does become a habit because it just falls into one of the things that you do without hesitation.
Incorporate movement to reinforce
Another helpful thing to do is add some sort of physical movement to the habit that you want to incorporate. So those habits where it's mostly mental of maybe going through how you're planning out your day or the self-talk that you want to incorporate to further empower yourself what you could do is write this down or type it out. What this does is it further emphasizes the idea or those thoughts that you have so it's not alluding you.
Writing things down externally stores that information where you can physically see it that serves as a trigger for a certain behavior, and it becomes encoded into your brain where it’s stored in your long-term memory. This essentially conditions you to that specific habit with it being reinforced from a physical standpoint.
Maybe you want to make journaling a habit daily because it can help you clearly communicate the thoughts that you have. It helps you work through the decision-making process to make better choices. It helps to reduce some of that anxiety you might be experiencing and it's also just a great way to find certain patterns that you might be exhibiting that you might not have been aware of without writing it down.
Have visual cues to trigger behaviors
Another way to condition yourself to develop the habit that you want is to incorporate a visual or a sound that triggers a certain behavior. This helps to grab your attention and increases the probability that you'll develop this conditioned response. Think about when you hear a buzzer, an alarm or something similar, it gets you to pay attention and the instinct will be to react accordingly. So for some hearing the alarm it might trigger them to get up immediately, for others it might be to hit the snooze button to get themselves ready to get up in a few minutes. Either way it is a signal that it is time to get up.
Use whatever is necessary for you. Maybe you have a certain song that gets you activated for a certain habit, so you begin to associate that habit with that song that makes you feel good or gets you motivated to act. In the beginning it's going to take a little bit of time for this to trigger you to behave in a certain way, so you got to be vigilant and consciously tell yourself when a certain sound or visual cue happens that is the time to perform the act of you want.
At first you might hesitate and just stare where you might just be fixated on the sound or visual thing but that is the time to say to yourself that means to move now. You're programming yourself to default to a certain mode, kind of like when you go through fire drills where that loud alarm when you first hear it might make you wonder what's going on, but that loudness is there to get you to move away from it because it physically hurts your ears.
Make the habits you want accessible
Make the habit that you want to incorporate physically accessible where it's just clear and obvious that it's just in the way and you might as well get it done. So if you have plans of studying for a certain exam get your book or whatever study material in your line of sight all the time where you have to see it and this serves as a reminder of what you need to get done.
And make sure to clear out all the other stuff that could be a distraction to what it is that you need to get done. So in the case of studying for that particular exam and you put your book on your night stand or your desk make sure to remove any other books or pictures or things from that area that way you have a lot less to look at and then you can be concentrated on the book itself.
The lot less you have to look at the lot less you have at competing for your attention. It's about making the distractions difficult to get to you so you can focus on what is simple. First beginning to do this might also seem awkward but those are the times to actively remind yourself that this visual cue is there to remind me of what needs to get done. And just like the other techniques you will not notice much when it does become a habit because you’ve gradually worked your way into it.
Reward yourself
To further make it appealing make sure to attach a reward each time you complete the action that you want to incorporate. Now this does take discipline because it's about self-regulating yourself but you got to ensure that you follow through on it. So if you want make workouts four days a week a habit you can attach a reward such as I will only watch my favorite shows after I complete the workouts.
This gives you something to look forward to. Obviously, you could just watch your shows and not work out but that's where that discipline comes in. Do things that make it a little bit harder to get that reward, put some sort of inconvenience in the way such as that reward actually being out of sight so you're not tempted to go directly to it instead of what you should be doing.
Forming certain habits requires discipline
The key thing that's going to be needed in incorporating the habits that you want is a high level of accountability and discipline that you hold yourself to. Without that it's going to be very difficult to consistently do what you set out for yourself because they're going to come the times and the days when you just don't feel like it. Even the small actions in the beginning are going to seem annoying when you just don't feel like doing it.
You might tell yourself what's one or two days but if you let that happen then momentum builds in the opposite direction where it's not helping you. You have to remind yourself that what you're doing now is setting yourself up for a better tomorrow, that it's worth doing right now for a small amount of inconvenience. What could help to make you more disciplined is to have a connection to why you want to form the habit.
Briefly explain and write it out of what that habit is going to do for you and then briefly explain what's going to happen if you don't get that habit incorporated. This helps you to clearly identify what the end goal is and what it is the missed opportunity if you don't capitalize on your end. Make it as simple as possible. There’s no need to write an essay on why the habit is important. It can be as short or as long as you need it to be but as long as you better understand and make a connection with it. When you're connected to it the more power you have that makes you gravitate towards it.
Final thoughts
Your habits are not set in stone, you can change them and adopt new ones but the longer that you have certain habits the harder it is to kick them. Just know that forming new habits takes time so you got to be patient with yourself. It can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days for a person to form a new habit. That's an average of 66 days for it to become automatic. Maybe it might be sooner before you develop certain ones and maybe it might take longer than those 254 days.
Don't let that discourage you if it does take longer than what you expected or what others might expect of you. Be vigilant in your efforts properly executing the action that you intend to do. There's going to come those times where you hit a rough patch and you're not consistent with the action that you take. Make sure to evaluate and hold yourself accountable when you do not execute on what it is that you want. Knowing that you can create your habits and your habits create you is just so empowering because it means your future is truly in your hands. You have so much impact and say in how that plays out.
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