The Secret to Creating Habits That Stick

We all have a habit or two that we would like to integrate into our daily lifestyle, but can’t get ourselves to start, or we start but the excitement of the new habit wears away after a few repetitions. Here are a few tips to help with precisely that, from the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear.

Make it obvious

For anything to get tightly integrated into your life, it has to have a permanent place. The same goes for habits.

You need to know where the habit you want to integrate fits into your life today, or your vision for the future.

Once you come to know why this habit is valuable to you, you can start setting aside time for it across the interval you want. If you feel like you don’t have time, list down the habits you are keeping now, filter out the useless ones (Like watching youtube in bed) and replace them with the ones you view as valuable (Like reading a book in bed).

Make it attractive

You don’t need the motivation to scroll through Instagram or to watch a movie. This is because they are designed with attractiveness in mind. You can do the same for habits you CHOOSE to have.

One way to go about this is to pair a habit you want to do, with another thing you NEED to do. Something as simple as a 30-minute Uber to your work can turn into 30 minutes of reading a book. Go through your day and observe for any repetitive tasks that could be paired with a habit you are trying to maintain.

Another thing you need to do is to remove distractions. If you are sitting in a room, and on the table, there is a book and right beside it your phone, you will no doubt reach out for your phone. That is because, at that moment, your phone is more attractive. That’s why an adjustment like keeping your phone in the other room can go a long way in making the book the most attractive thing for you to do at the moment.

If a habit is particularly hard for you to do, you can create a practice to do before you start it each day, like listening to energizing music before studying. 

Make it easy

Sometimes the habits themselves are fun to do, but getting to the point of starting could take some time, like setting up the guitar before starting practice. 

The solution to that is to reduce friction as much as possible. In our guitar example, a good way to reduce friction would be to keep it outside and have the strings tuned always.

Another way to make a task easier is to automate it. Something as simple as setting an alarm to ring at 9 pm is an effective way to get you to stop whatever you are doing and start reading before going to sleep, and you won’t even have to think about it.

Make it satisfying

One reason Instagram is so attractive is that it is meticulously engineered to control your dopamine levels. 

Instead of getting satisfaction from Instagram, you should be getting it from the valuable habits you are integrating into your life - THIS is what dopamine is meant for.

Reward yourself after finishing each habit, like watching an episode from a TV show after finishing your study session. Eventually, the satisfaction will kick in right after you finish your study session and you won’t even need the TV show episode to keep you going. At that point, you will be the kind of person who just studies because you like it. 

This core advancement in your personality is what it meant to have a habit integrated into your life. 

Having a streak is another way to keep you motivated daily. Use an application or a physical calendar to keep track of your streak. Don’t get off track if you miss one day though. Make it a rule to never miss two days in a row and this will get you back on track.

Takeaways

Making it obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying is a guaranteed way to successfully integrate a habit into your life.

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