How Habits Are Formed

“You can be overwhelmed by every small setback in life, or you can be energized by the possibilities they bring.” Caroline Leaf

 

This month has been a month of looking at our habits to see the impact that they are having on our lives and where we are heading. We’ve looked at why habits are important and how to change our habits Can Habits Change?, both are important to changing the course of our lives. Now let’s look at how we can form new habits.

I’m not a trained physiologist, and if you want a more scientific take on habits, then the only place I can point you to is Google. I can tell you what I’ve done to help me develop habits and what hasn’t worked.
Let me start with my morning this morning as an example of what hasn’t worked. I have a morning routine that I try to keep every day. It helps me accomplish some of the more important things that I want to do.

This morning, however, what ended up happening was I sat down at my computer and just stared at the screen. I didn’t meditate or read my daily Bible reading plan. What did I do? I watched a couple of superhero shows, ate some cereal and then decided I would try to start my morning routine about an hour or so later than I wanted to. It really just made me feel bad because I didn’t have a good reason for slacking and it just pushed me further back than I wanted to.

So what has worked for me? Let me give you what I have learned and what has helped me to form new habits.


1. Establish the goal


A new habit won’t last if you don’t know what the end goal is. For me, a part of my morning routine is reading my daily Bible plan and also writing 500 words. My end goal for both of these are things that I want to accomplish this year. With my daily Bible reading, the goal I have is to read through the Bible in a year. Writing 500 words every day will help me reach my goal of publishing two books this year and reaching more people with my blog.


2. Don’t dwell on the mistakes

I’ve probably had more days than I would like to admit about messing up my morning routine or missing it all together. However, I don’t beat myself up over it. I try to tackle some of the things throughout the day, but I make sure not to beat myself up over it. If anything I push it aside and try again the next day.


3. Reward Yourself

Too many times in developing a new habit we want to wait until we’ve reach the goal or the end until we reward ourselves. For me, I like to set rewards along the way. Rewards along the way reinforce the habit I’m trying to develop. That’s what it is all about. Solidifying the habit is the goal.

Hopefully these things help you and you don’t beat yourself up if you have a misstep. Tomorrow is another day and another opportunity.



Discussion Question:
What habit are you trying to develop?

 

Can Habits Change?

Have you ever wondered why you keep doing the same thing over and over. It feels like you’re in this place where it seems as if life has you in this continuous loop. Something good will happen and then something from your past keeps coming back into the picture. Or the time that you decide that you’re going to start a new diet is when a co-worker decides to bring in sweets into work. Then it seems like we have to restart our diet all over again.


So can we change our habits? Are we stuck they way we are? The simple answer is that yes we can change our habits! No, we’re not stuck being the same person forever. We can grow and change, but it’s up to us on how to do it.

Your habits determine your life Click To Tweet


Here are a couple of ways that we can develop the habits we desire and move in a different direction.
Habits are like paved roads in our minds and actions. We do things a certain way because at some point we paved a way in our mind of how it should be accomplished. That paved road became easier and easier the more we traveled it. Developing a new habit isn’t tearing up the old road, but it is laying a road that we need to travel instead of the old road. This is why sometimes we can fall back into old habits and ways of thinking.


1. Identify the Cues


There is usually something that triggers a habit. When it comes to bad habits it can be stress, or an environment that will bring certain feelings and then the habit. Your alarm going off in the morning may be triggering you to hit the snooze button.


2. Disrupt the Cue


Once we are able to identify the Cue, then we can change the triggers. With our example of the snooze button. If we’re hitting the snooze when the alarm goes off, then to disrupt the cue, we would move the alarm clack to the other side of the room. Actually having to get up out of the bed and walk across the floor disrupts the cue.


3. Replace the Cue


Ripping up the old road is a lot harder than paving a new one. Basically it is easier to replace a bad habit than it is to completely stop a bad a habit. The new habit will interfere with the old habit and stop us from going into autopilot.


4. Forgive Yourself

 

The whole process of starting a new habit takes time. We can be our hardest critics, so forgive yourself when there is a slip up. The entire process of changing a bad habit is not an easy one. Know that there will be hiccups along the way. Just don’t allow the hiccups to stop you.


Discussion Question:

What habits do you want to change?

 

The Importance of Habits

If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. – Colin Powell

Have you ever thought about the habits that you have? Most people don’t and I can say for a long time that I didn’t. How important are habits, they are the key to changing your life. They can help you become a better person, a better spouse, father, employee or boss. The opposite is also true. Your habits could be keeping you in the same place. The habits that you have now may have gotten you a comfortable life, but they also may be keeping you in that comfort. Habits are very important.

Life Assessment
Morning Routine

My Writing Habit

There have been a couple of times where I have tried to form a new habit with my writing. It’s on my heart to write two books this year. I know that to get those accomplished I need to actually sit down and write. One thing that I’ve learned is that I need a daily writing habit. My goal is writing  500 words a day. That is why most of my articles are right around that length.

The reason that my books aren’t completed is because I haven’t been consistent in my writing. I have a morning routine and have written about the importance of a writing routine, but I still haven’t stuck to it lately. These ups and downs with my writing habit do show me the importance of habits.

Want to know how important habits are? Here are some stats

The Importance of Habits

  • Almost half of the actions you perform each day are habits.
  • Habits are powerful because of neurological cravings.
  • When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making
  • The automatization of your actions free up energy that can be used focus to other tasks.
  • Take control over your habits: Your brain can’t tell the difference between bad and good habits.

 

The general rule is that it takes 21 Days to start a new habit. The struggle for most of us , myself included, is that we can do good for a couple of days and then it just takes one day to mess up everything and we feel like we have to start all over again.

21 Days to a new Habit...what's holding you back Click To Tweet

Habits are vitally important to us. From the above list, we can see how much of what we do is based on habits.

How often do you think about the route that you take to work? Do you think about the route when you take the kids to school? What about the start of your work day?

The good news is that we can change our habits. We can improve and go from where we are to where we want to be. It’s not about changing the big things in our lives but about changing the things we do on a daily basis.