Do you bite your nails? Procrastinate? Go to sleep when you are overwhelmed? Munch on chocolate whenever you are hungry? I do. I have collected a load of bad habits in my lifetime. Good news, over the last 3 years I’ve been learning to unlearn them and to create good habits.
These days I am doing stretches every morning. I stopped drinking sugary drinks. My nails are mostly fine unless I am under a ton of pressure.
And today I want to share with you concrete strategies to change your habits and to create new ones! Imagine what your life would be like with less bad habits! I know I’d get a ton more done. 😉
If you want to get right to the free habit tracker and the free printable purse tracker you can skip all the way down! If you want clear, practical and concrete tactics or strategies to change your habits, keep reading!
Table of Contents
What are habits?
According to James Clear, the author of the book Atomic Habits, habits are: “the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day.” According to the Cambridge Dictionary a habit is “something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it”.
Technically habits are meant to make our life easier. We don’t have to think about what to do with our toothbrush each day. We see it, we smear toothpaste onto it and into our mouth it goes. Automatically.
A study conducted in the 1990s by MIT shows the brain activity of rats before and after habit building. The experiment was mentioned in the book “The power of habit” by Charles Duhigg. After a clicking noise a door opened to a maze. The rats had to find their way through 2 sections for a piece of chocolate. At first their brain was on full activity, but after a week their brain activity calmed down during the task.
The problem starts when we form bad habits. So let’s take a peek at how habits are formed.
How are habits formed in the brain?
Habits are automatic behaviors. The consistent repetition of a simple action leads, through associative learning, to the action being activated when you are exposed to the same cues again.
Which means that the more often we repeat an action the less conscious it becomes.
In 1948 Skinner put rats into a cage with a lever that when pressed dispelled food. The rats soon came to realize that pushing the button would produce food.
Skinner believed there are 3 primary factors that cause a habit:
- Stimulus, seeing the button
- Behavior, pressing the button
- Reward, food
How do habits work? - The 4 Stages of the Habit Loop
What are the 4 components of a habit loop? According to James Clear the 4 stages of habit formation look like this:
- THE CUE Your habit gets triggered by a cue
- THE CRAVING Which leads to a craving
- THE RESPONSE So you respond in a certain way
- THE REWARD and your behavior gets rewarded.
From my own experience:
- The cue can be visual, a smell, an emotion, a situation, a feeling. E.g.: You get stressed.
- Eg.: You crave for scratching your skin or eating a cookie -> Everyone has individual cravings.
Often different cues can cause the same craving!
- Now the habit has been triggered and you act on it (if possible) -> You behave in a certain way. Eg.: Scratch, Eat.
- Now you feel less stressed which is the reward.
What is the difference between the reward and craving in the habit loop?
- The Craving is when you feel like you want to take a certain action.
- While the reward is to get a certain result or remove/ create a certain feeling.
Which good habits to set in your 20s?
How many habits are there? Thousands! So, it is incredibly difficult to pick a certain number of habits you should pursue. Instead, I’d like you to choose small habits that will impact your life the most. Here are the key habits I belief we should develop in our 20s:
Emotional Habits:
I think most of our habits come from how we handle and react to our emotions. Ok let’s say you are bored? What do you usually do in that case? You might start a Netflix marathon or spend way too much time on YouTube. Let me give examples on the emotions that trigger a bad habit and the good habit we should swap it with:
TRIGGER EMOTION | BAD HABIT | GOOD HABIT WE SHOULD CREATE! |
Boredom |
|
(FOOD FOR OUR MIND) |
Loneliness |
|
(FOOD FOR OUR SOUL) |
Stress |
|
(FOOD FOR OUR SOUL) |
Overwhelm |
|
|
Anger |
|
|
What are your worst emotional triggers?
Which habits do they trigger? And what are the good habits you could swap them with?
Healthy Habits
The older you get; the more important health gets. Yeah, as a 20-year-old you hardly think about the risks of a heart attack, aching bones and how stiff your body feels. No pun intended. But as you get older you often wish you’d started healthier habits early on. Like stretching. Eating properly. Drinking enough water.
I don’t want to get old. I know I can’t stop that. What I can do is adapt to a lifestyle that lets me stay mobile and young for longer. So here are my top 10 health habits I’d recommend.
- dental care habits (flossing, brushing at least twice a day, at least 1 yearly dentist appointments)
- skin care habits (cleansing, daily sunscreen)
- flexibility and strength habits (stretching, yoga, workouts)
- diet habits (alcohol, cigarettes, healthy meals, enough water)
When do you feel like you are getting old/ unhealthy? Which habits could you create to stay healthier?
Goal Oriented Habits
Last but not the least, goal-oriented habits. With goal-oriented habits I mean habits that help you achieve what you want in life. Whether you want to create your own business, become a good mom or partner, or start your dream career. Our willpower isn’t always enough. Just imagine that you wake up and automatically start working on your next project without feeling this overwhelming urge to crawl back into bed!
If you create the right habit it’s possible!
These habits might include:
- Daily Scheduling each night before sleeping
- 15 Productive Minutes before turning on your mails
- 15 Minutes Self-Study before sleeping
Which Goal Oriented Habits might help you achieve your goals and make life easier?
How do you make a new habit and how to stick to it?
Finally, we will learn how to build a new habit step by step. That’s my process so maybe you have to adapt it a little.
1. Choose 1 habit you want to create:
The number one mistake here is trying to create too many habits at once. (I really fell into that trap many times). So, how many habits should you try to change at once? I’d recommend one to three from personal experience. More than that, at least I always fail.
Mistake number two is to pick a habit that is too difficult to implement. Choose a tiny, mini, micro habit at first. If you feel resistance make it even smaller. (E.g.: 5 minutes of yoga instead of 30 minutes).
2. Use an already established habit loop if possible:
You don’t change the cue; you just change the behavior and get a similar reward.
E.g.: You crave food to destress. Usually you’d go for chocolate. Instead, you can eat a piece of fruit. Still not an awesome way to destress, but healthier than a piece of chocolate. And you’ll additionally get your daily fruits.
3.Create personal triggers/cues:
Create personal cues. For example, I always listen to the same music when I start working. The sound is my cue. Once I’ve started the task, I don’t need the music anymore. I can turn it off. Your cue can be visual, a smell, a sound, a feeling, or a taste, a certain location, an accountability buddy, or a certain time.
Let’s go back to the chocolate when stressed – example. Your cue might still be stress. Place a bowl of fruits next to your workspace. (A place where I usually get stressed). Munch on apples or bananas (they also increase dopamine like chocolate). Same reward.
I’ve heard you can practice reacting to a cue. I wonder if that works. Let’s say we sit at the desk and start writing. After 5 Minutes we get up, sit down again and start writing. Repeat it a few times and voilà. Maybe that’s worth an experiment 
.
What might your personal cue look like?
4. Habit Stacking or Overlapping Tasks.
Whilst habit stacking isn’t ideal it’s a start. You can combine two compatible habits and do them at the same time.
Like brushing your teeth and listening to a podcast while doing so. Which habits could you stack? Incompatible habits are for example studying and cleaning.
5. Repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Good point is studies have found failing to do your habit one day doesn’t have a giant impact. Learning a habit is basically repetition until it becomes unconscious. It’s an endurance game. We can make the new habit is. Following the bad habit difficult, in the end we still have to stick with a new habit for a certain time to really make it stick.
6. On Rewards and Punishments
Rewards and punishments never worked for me personally. This is what happens when I set a reward. I can just get xyz without following the habit? When I set a punishment, I get stubborn. Maybe it works for you, but since it really doesn’t work for me I can’t recommend it.
7. How can I make my habit more attractive?
When it’s really difficult for me to stick to a habit. I combine the new (less pleasant habit) with a bad (yet fun) cue. Like ironing whilst watching One Piece or Netflix. Less effective, but once you start you won’t necessarily need Netflix anymore. You can turn off the automatic start of the next episode.
How long does it take to build a new habit?
How long does it take a habit to form? According to a 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it takes 18 to 254 days for a person to form a new habit. The study also concluded that, on average, it takes 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic.
What’s the 21 90 rule or the 21-day rule
The 21/90 rule states that it takes 21 days to make a habit and 90 days to make it a permanent lifestyle change. Sadly, it’s a myth which can be traced back to Maltz book “Psycho Cybernetics, 1960” where he observed in himself and his patients that an old mental image requires a minimum of about 21 days to dissolve and a new one to gel.
Free Habit Tracker PDF Printable
Here is our 30-Day Habit Tracker for free in order to track your keystone habits.
Habit Tracker Purse Cards
What to do next ...
Download your free habit tracker. Chose a new habit to create and get started! Change comes from taking action.
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