Why is it so hard to form good habits?
Why are some people able to achieve their goals, but others can’t even manage that first step? It’s all about making the science work in your favor. Starting with a “Minimally Viable Habit” (more below) can help hack your way into a real habit.
We all know people who are able to do anything they put their mind to — the kind of person that wakes up one morning and says, ‘I’m going to master the violin,’ and then they go and do it. However, we also know people who buy a violin and never take it out of the box! Why is this? Why are some people able to apply themselves in ways others can’t?
Habits are the pathway to achieving our goals. But forming and sustaining routines until they become “habit,” is not intuitive for a lot of people.
I wanted to look at some of the science behind habit-forming and figure out some ways to create habits that stick.
People are different
👆Obvious statement is obvious!
Effective habit-forming is a combination of nature and application. Some people are naturally better at behaving stoically, pushing themselves over the hump of repetition needed for something to become a habit. Others need to find the right structure, pattern, or reward to get there. The habit of building habits, it turns out, is a habit. So, just like starting to run every day, or learning to code, getting in the right mindset to structure something we want to do into something we do takes practice.
As noted in a Science Daily Article summarizing recent research:
Psychologists have been trying to understand what drives our habits for over a century, and one of the recurring questions is how much habits are a product of what we want versus what we do.
If you’re not one of those people who can just apply themselves, like our violinist friend, here are some tips you can try. This is some of what I’ve found to hack the way our brains work to make it easier to turn a goal into a habit.
Set the right habits
People who can’t keep to their resolutions often fail because they were trying to do the wrong things. Most of the time, it’s because they’re trying to do too much too soon. As noted above, what you do is probably more important than what you want or how badly you want it.
Goals turn into habits when they’re small enough that you can do them every day without life getting in the way. For example, you won’t read an entire book every day, but you could read ten pages.
Break down your overarching goals into smaller, sustainable, achievable chunks. The goal is to make the task so small that you can’t possibly not do it. Your goal is just to reinforce the act of completing the task. Soon, these little bits become part of your everyday routine. The ability to break everything down into something small enough to make it impossible not to do is the key to tricking your brain into doing the thing.
Starting to feel like you’re not going to go for a run today? Just put on your running shoes and go stand outside your front door. You’ve still reinforced the habit, even if you didn’t fully do the thing.
Accountability
Research by the American Society of Training and Development found that when you commit to someone else that you’re going to do something, your chances of doing it rise to 95%.
When you share your ideas with your friends or family, you make yourself accountable. You know that next time you see them, they’re going to ask you how you’re getting on. To avoid the embarrassment of having to admit that you’ve abandoned your goal, you are more likely to apply yourself to achieving it.
Deliberate practice
In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the concept of deliberate practice. To get better at anything, rather than just practice, make a plan of what you’re going to practice and how it will make a difference to you achieving your wider goal.
For example, someone trying to get better at guitar can’ t just strum the chords they already know. They will practice moving from E to A to B at a speed of 100 beats per minute, and then increase the speed as they get better. Each day, the guitarist will return and work through the same exercises.
Remember the famous Bruce Lee quote — ‘I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.’ Habit gets us to mastery, it occupies the same brain-space where it becomes second nature.
Reward yourself
Many people abandon their resolutions because they don’t celebrate when they do the right thing. Also, they punish themselves too hard when they let things slip, even slightly. All stick and no carrot leads to a negative experience. What I’ve found is that this negative reinforcement doesn’t just impact the specific thing you’re trying to do, but your brain is smart enough to associate that negative feeling with your effort to build any habit. If your method is broken, it doesn’t matter what you’re trying to do.
When you reward yourself, for example, having a bite of dark chocolate after you have worked out, your brain begins to associate the reward with the action. This concept goes back to behavioral psychology and classical conditioning — Pavlov’s Dog.
On the other hand, don’t punish yourself with negative self-talk if, for example, when you miss a day of trumpet practice. You will encounter obstacles on your journey to self-improvement. The important thing is how you bounce back. Miss one — but don’t miss two. You can also try task period journaling to record why you missed that day without judgment. Not beating yourself up and not learning are two different things.
Tech: Don’t fall for the trap
Of course, there are a multitude of tech applications to help you achieve your goals by forming good habits.
For example, if you’re looking to get back into shape, Peloton uses accountability to keep you motivated with interactive classes for their home spinning bikes. If you’re the type of person who abandons their resolution to go to the gym because of the journey, or won’t go out running because of the weather, something like this can help you achieve your goals without leaving your lounge. Reducing the friction of your own excuses is important. But you have to have a good handle on why.
The mobile app HabitBull helps you break bad habits or start more positive ones. It offers an online community to boost accountability, reminders to keep you in line, and presents all your data in beautiful graphs, to reinforce good behavior. A pen and a notebook could also be all the tech you need.
Unfortunately there’s a trap with technology aimed at improving habits. “People who want to do something new” is a huge market, and so there is no shortage of apps and tools to address our struggles. But, if you’re the type of person who will spend all of your time researching the right solution, then stay away from the tech. It’s just going to distract you from doing. Instead, adopt the MVP of the software world. Make your habit a minimally viable product, or maybe a “Minimally Viable Habit.” In other words, do as little as you can to establish the repetition and gradually increase it toward your goal only when you can be trusted. Then, and only then should you look at tech to make things easier.
Find out more
Follow these tips, and you will find it easier to create habits that help you hit your goals. Let the science work in your favor, rather than against you.
If you want to keep up with me and all the latest with my projects, find me on twitter.
