How Changing Your Everyday Habits Can Change Your Life
“I have learned that champions aren’t just born; champions can be made when they embrace and commit to life-changing positive habits.” — Lewis Howes
When was the last time you thought about your habits? And more importantly, when was the last time you thought about how your habits are shaping your life?
I’m guessing you’ve probably answered “a long time ago” to the first question, and “never” to the second question.
However, it’s my aim in this article to show you just how critical your habits are for your health, happiness and success. But I won’t stop there, as I’m also going to give you the keys to being able to break bad habits and create good habits.
Interested?
Then read on…
What are habits and how can they hold you back?
Firstly, let’s look at one common habit that holds most people back — procrastination.
We all suffer from this from time-to-time, but many people have made a habit of procrastinating. I’m sure you know what I mean, things like:
- Always finding an excuse for not starting something
- Allowing themselves to be distracted easily from the task at hand
- Never seeming to finish what they’ve started
I remember a colleague of mine who was a master of procrastination.
Every time I asked him how he was getting on with his projects, he’d give me some super-complex answer that sounded impressive; but was really just a cover for him not having got on with his work. He was so good at sounding busy, that I remember managers often agreeing to get other people to help him out — as he was clearly swamped with work!
Of course, there was only so long he could maintain this level of procrastination before colleagues (like me) became suspicious of his work. After all, despite his words, his output was way down on what it should have been.
One day, when we went for lunch, I spoke to him about this (tactfully of course). I asked him: “What’s stopping you achieving your work targets?” He confided in me that he found it incredibly hard to start and keep going on a project. This was the reason he kept making excuses for not having got the required work done.
Jumping ahead a few months…
I helped this colleague to break his procrastination habit and to create a new habit of proactivity. This transformed his work output — and his life.
What did I teach him to help bring this about?
Well, the first thing I showed him was how to deconstruct a habit.
Break free from a destructive habit
You probably don’t realize it, but habits are actually loops made up of three components:
- Cue — This is something that triggers a habit. It might be an event, an action, a feeling, people, or even an emotional state.
- Routine — This the behavior that follows after a habit has been triggered. A routine is the same sequence of actions that is taken over and over again.
- Reward — This is the positive reinforcement your brain identifies with the routine that you’ve just taken. Your brain associates the routine with the cue, so you remember to repeat the behavior again in order to get the same reward in the future.
Let me give you an example of this 3-step process in action.
Many people rely on a legal drug to help them get through every day. Which drug am I referring to? Caffeine!
Whether people are coffee,tea or cola drinkers, they’ll almost all tell you that they can’t get through a day without their morning cuppa or afternoon uppa! They’re literally addicted to the taste and temporary mood boost they get from their caffeinated drink.
I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of people like this, but have you ever stopped to think about how their habit started?
Perhaps they were feeling worn out (Cue) after a long meeting, and they decided to take a short break and grab themselves a coffee. While drinking, they began to feel a physical and mental energy rush. In fact, they were literally experiencing a surge of energy. This made them feel positive and satisfied (Reward). As a result of this experience, they continued with this routine every time they felt worn out, lethargic or gloomy.
As you can see, this simple example demonstrates that Cues are the starting point for each time you go through a Habit Loop.
Without the Cue to trigger your habit… your Routine or behavior won’t follow… and your Reward won’t be obtained.
Now, this might all sound like a bad thing, but you can use this knowledge to your advantage when you want to break free from a negative or destructive habit. How so? Well, when any part of the Habit Loop is broken, that’s a potential weak point, which you can exploit to help free you from your habit.
Let me show you how that works.
If you’re a caffeine addict, then you’ll know just how seductive a cup of strong coffee can be. In fact, you’ll probably have uttered things like: “I’m desperate for a coffee,” “I need my caffeine,” and “I’m gonna take my break in Starbucks!”
However, when you understand that a Habit Loop can only start when a Cue triggers it, then you can be mentally prepared to stop the loop before it even gets started.
Imagine that you’ve woken up early, and you feel weary and half alive. This feeling would normally be the perfect Cue to reach for the caffeine. But to break this habit, you would recognise the Cue and refuse to trigger the Habit Loop.
Of course, this works best if you can replace your destructive habit with a positive one. Let me show you how you can do this.
Create new, positive habits
Continuing the example of being addicted to caffeine (which is a very common addiction), I’m going to explain now how to replace this bad habit with a good one.
Once you’ve clearly identified your Cue for reaching for a caffeinated drink, you’ll be ready to start breaking free from this habit!
For example, if your Cue is feeling worn out and lethargic when you’re at work, then instead of turning to coffee to help perk you up, look for something healthier and more holistic to energize you. These could be things such as:
- Going for a short walk outside
- Drinking a fruit or veggie smoothie
- Hydrating with a glass of mineral water
- Practicing deep breaking for a few minutes
- Taking a short break to chat and laugh with a colleague
In reality, you’d probably want to adopt a few of the above techniques to help you break free from your coffee habit, but for clarity, let’s focus on one just now — water.
When you feel the need to reach for a coffee, try instead drinking a cool glass of mineral water. This is likely to feel odd at first, but I guarantee that as the water quickly hydrates you, you’ll quickly feel brighter, lighter and more energized.
The trick to making this a new habit is to use your willpower for the first 21 days to ensure that you keep replacing your coffee with water. Sure, it will be tough, but it will be well worth it in the end. Not only will you feel and look healthier than before, but you’ll save yourself having to make or buy any more coffee.
What’s the reason for 21 days?
This is the minimum time it takes to imprint a new habit into your subconscious mind. Once you’ve done this, your action will start to become automatic — meaning you won’t have to force yourself to do the action anymore, it will have become a habit.
I’ve used the example of moving yourself from coffee to water, but the same principle applies to any bad habit you want to replace with a good one. Determine what positive habit you’d like to adopt to replace a negative one, and then use your willpower to put that into action in your life for at least 21 days.
Try this, and you’ll see for yourself that it really does work.
If you need help choosing new habits and goals, then please check out Lifehack’s 3-Step Guide to Break Free and Design the Life You Want. This free guidebook will help you take charge of your life right now.
Welcome to your new life
Once you start putting this simple habit changing technique into action, you’ll begin to see how easy it is to transform all areas of your life.
Perhaps you want to lose weight, learn a new language, or climb the career ladder.
All these things (and more) are possible once you take control of your habits. Instead of bad habits holding you back, you’ll have good habits driving you forward. Instead of negative habits, bringing you down, you’ll have positive habits pulling you up.
To help you create your new habits, I recommend you celebrate every time you successfully adopt one. Your prize should be something you really want — perhaps a new book, camera, or a day trip with your partner. When you have something definite to look forward to, this will help keep you on track for success.
Finally, as I always like to remind my readers, if you do nothing with this information, then you’ll see no benefit in your life. But if you put the information into action, you can expect to see desirable results in just a matter of weeks.
Habits shape your life — so change your habits and change your life!
