Transforming your life through habit formation

As part of my New Years Resolution, I recently decided to set myself the target of reading one book every month. In February, I picked up “The Power of Habit”, a book that explains why we do what we do in life and business.

The author explains that habit’s can be segmented into three distinct phases; the cue, the routine and the reward. An example for working out:

The Cue = Seeing your sports shoes

The Routine = Working Out

The Reward = Releasing endorphins

The premise of the book is that, to form a new habit you are required to create a cue and a reward. And so, I decided to form 3 new habits:

• Transcendental Meditation

Meditation is proven to lower blood pressure, decrease anxiety and increase concentration. The benefits are unparalleled and I’ve always been an avid, albeit lousy, believer in the power of meditation. A study of over 2000 people once found that transcendental meditation reduced rates of hospitalization by 50%. It also increases self-actualisation, self-concept and productivity.

• Drinking Green Tea

Drinking Green Tea is also proven to decrease the chances of developing heart problems and increases working memory. This is because green tea intensifies the interplay between the frontal and parietal lobes of the brain resulting in a heightened ability to recall information.

• Waking Up Early

If I wanted to, I could get up at 7am and still get into work on time. This would mean that 12.5% of my day would be morning relaxation, 50% of my day would be working and 37.5% of my day would be evening relaxation. To me, it seems that the human relaxation periods are more weighted toward the evening at 67% of total relaxation. My logic is that if I were to wake up at 5:30am, 22% of my time would be apportioned to morning relaxation and 28% of my time would be apportioned to evening relaxation.

To form these habits I had to formulate a cue, a routine and reward for each. My theory was that if I did them sequentially, the habits would be easier to form as you would only require one cue and one reward. My routine now looks like this:

1. Wake up to my Sleep Cycle alarm between 5:30 and 6am. The Sleep Cycle app wakes me up when I’m in light sleep between this period. It also wakes you up with a slowly increasing alarm noise and a slowly increasing light source, ensuring the slow decrease in the release of Melatonin (Meaning that your body can wake up without a groggy feeling)
2. Do a 20 minute workout
3. Do a 10 minute meditation using the “HeadSpace” app
4. Drink some Green Tea
5. Get ready for work and head off

The cue here is the alarm clock. It allows me to wake up without feeling groggy. The routine is three-fold and sequential; a workout, meditation and a gulp of green tea. The reward is my profound productivity throughout the day.

The results are incredible. My sleep quality has increased from 66% to 91% and my productivity has increased from 1.5 tasks per hour to 2 tasks per hour. From a qualitative perspective, I don’t rush around in the morning and I feel less anxious when tackling complex challenges at work.

So I challenge you to do the following:

1. Define your objectives in life and analyse the habits that will help you achieve them
2. Break these habits into a cue, a routine and a reward. Ensure you also define a time for the cue to occur
3. Find tools that will facilitate the formation of habits e.g. apps, to-do lists etc.
4. Document your progress (This will serve as a reward) using data as a driver

The next habits I’m looking to adopt are:

• Documenting a snippet of my day, every-day, for the rest of my life using the 1 Second Everyday app (1SE). The purpose of this is to propel me to do at least one exciting thing every day
• Performing daily brain training using the PEAK app as a tool. This will allow me to be more efficient at work

Remember, humans are animals of habit. Habit defines our character and our future. It allows us to use less cognitive energy when making decisions.

It’s going to take a while to form new habits but once they’re there, they become more sustainable and they require less cognition to perform.

My message is simple; If you want to change your life, change your habits.