Habits: Harnessing the power of repeated small changes
How to build and break habits to become the type of person you want to be.
A habit is a behaviour that you perform regularly and that has become automatic through repetition. Like brushing your teeth every morning, going to the gym three times a week, or picking up your phone when you get a notification of a new message.
Forming a habit often starts by trial and error. When you encounter a new problem, you try out something to solve it. If this doesn’t solve the problem, you try out something else until you find something that works. After this, you tend to repeat the successful action every time you encounter this problem. This reinforces this action until it eventually becomes a habit. For example, you are bored and discover that scrolling on social media relieves you of the boredom. By repeating this action every time you get bored, it eventually becomes an automatic habit. The human brain is a prediction machine: it remembers the past to predict what will work in the future.
The objective of any habit is to solve a problem with as little effort as possible. Habits enable you to act without consciously paying attention to what you are doing. You often don’t notice the habits that govern your life. This is useful because it frees up mental capacity that you can spend on other tasks. This is also dangerous as you can get stuck in unhelpful patterns.
Why habits are important
Habits have a huge impact on the outcomes of our lives because they are practiced consistently. The results we experience today are largely the consequence of the habits we've maintained over the past months or years.
It is estimated that 40 to 50 percent of our actions are done out of habit. Many of these unconscious habits influence what follows them, taking us down desirable or undesirable paths. For example, performing your usual morning routine can set a positive tone for the day and influence your decisions throughout the day. Grabbing your phone to quickly read a message can lead to half an hour of mindlessly scrolling through social media. Opening a bag of chips with the intention of eating a few can result in eating them all within five minutes.
One small change doesn’t matter much in the moment. Lifting weights once in the gym will not noticeably increase muscle mass. But small changes repeated over a long period of time can make a big difference. Lifting weights three times a week for six months will definitely increase muscle mass. A small change in your daily habits can make a big difference in the long run. Improving yourself by one percent every day for a year makes you thirty-seven times better. Decreasing one percent per day for a year takes you to almost zero.
Habits are not primarily about achieving external results, such as losing weight or becoming more productive. More importantly, they reinforce a new identity by changing the stories you tell yourself about the type of person you are. The more you take an action, the more you reinforce the corresponding identity. So, the first question to ask yourself is: What type of person do I want to become?
Focus on systems
We aspire to achieve better results in life, such as earning more money or reducing stress. Many believe that setting specific goals is the best way to achieve these outcomes. While goals are essential for setting a direction, it is our systems that produce the desired results. Our habits are what lead to the outcomes we seek. By improving our habits, we can improve our results.
The four-step habit model
According to the four-step habit loop of James Clear (see References), all habits progress through a four-step feedback loop in the same order: cue, craving, response, reward.
👉 The cue triggers a craving by noticing and predicting a reward, such as money, status, approval or personal satisfaction. Without the cue the behaviour won’t start.
👉 The craving is the motivational force behind your behaviour, it is about wanting to obtain the reward. You don’t crave the habit itself, but the expected change in your inner state that the habit brings, such as feeling alert, relieved, or entertained. You are motivated to take action because of your desire to close the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. Without sufficient craving you won’t have enough motivation to respond.
👉 The response is the habit you perform to obtain the reward. You will not perform the action if it requires more physical or mental effort than you're willing to invest. And if you cannot perform the behaviour, you obviously cannot respond.
👉 The reward is the outcome of the response. The reward teaches you which actions are worth repeating. Without an immediately satisfying reward, you won’t repeat the behaviour.
For example, you feel frustrated every time things don’t go your way (cue), you want to feel calm (craving), you take a few slow, deep breaths (response) and this immediately satisfies your craving to feel calm (reward).
The four laws of behaviour change
Based on his four-step habit model, James Clear (see References) created a practical framework of four laws for creating desirable habits and the inverse of these laws for breaking unwanted habits.
👉 The first law and its inverse (Cue): Make it obvious or invisible
👉 The second law and its inverse (Craving): Make it attractive or unattractive
👉 The third law and its inverse (Response): Make it easy or difficult
👉 The fourth law and its inverse (Reward): Make it satisfying or unsatisfying
The first three laws of behaviour change increase the chance that a behaviour will be performed this time, the fourth law increases the chance that it will be repeated next time. The inverted first three laws reduce the chance that a behaviour will be performed this time, and the inverted fourth law decreases the chance that it will be repeated next time.
If you want to build a desired habit, ask yourself:
🤔 How can I make it obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying?
If you want to break an unwanted habit, ask yourself:
🤔 How can I make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying?
How to build and break habits
The process of building and breaking habits consists of the following five phases:
🛠️ Determine the type of person you want to be
It is difficult to form new habits. This is partly because we try to change our habits in the wrong order. We usually start at the level of outcomes, what we want to achieve, rather than at the level of self-stories, who we want to be. It is hard to build new habits that don’t align with your self-stories. If you want to change or build a habit, always focus first on the type of person who can achieve the outcome you want.
For details see:
🔗 Habits: Determine the type of person you want to be
🛠️ Become aware of your daily habits
You must become aware of your unconscious and automatic habits before you can change them. To increase your awareness, take inventory of your daily habits and assess whether they are good, neutral or bad for you in the long term.
For details see:
🔗 Habits: Become aware of your daily habits
🛠️ Determine which habits you want to build or break
Determine which habits you want to build or break to become the type of person you want to be and achieve the result you want. To increase your chances of building habits that last, they should align with your life purpose, personal values, natural abilities and personality traits. An effective approach to choosing habits that work best for you is to use the trial and error method.
For details see:
🔗 Habits: Determine which habits you want to build or break
⚒️ Build desired habits and break unwanted habits
Build or break your chosen habits using strategies and techniques based on James Clear’s four-step habit model: cue, craving, response, and reward.
Increase the chance of successfully building a habit by asking yourself:
🤔 How can I make it obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying?
Increase the chance of successfully breaking a habit by asking yourself:
🤔 How can I make it invisible, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying?
It often takes some time before a new habit makes a noticeable difference. For example, it can take up to eight weeks before you notice any growth in muscle mass when lifting weights. If people don't see visible results after a few tries, they tend to quit. Just be patient and don’t give up too soon.
For details see:
🔗 Habits: Build desired habits and break unwanted habits
🛠️ Periodically review your habits
Periodically reviewing your habits involves a structured and reflective process that takes relatively little time. This process is critical to ensuring that your habits serve you and help you become the type of person you want to be. Depending on your situation and preferences, you can combine a detailed monthly (or weekly/biweekly) review with a more general annual (or biannual) review.
For details see:
🔗 Habits: Periodically review your habits
🎉👏🎈
Success in life is not so much about reaching goals. It is about living in accordance with what you value. A life focused on values is always more fulfilling than a life focused on goals, because focusing on values makes you appreciate the journey as you work toward your goals. Life is a never ending process of becoming the person you want to be, of living in accordance with your life purpose and personal values. The four laws of behaviour change provide you with a system of tools and techniques to shape habits that help you live in accordance with what you value and become the type of person you want to be.
References
Atomic Habits, by James Clear
My blogposts about habits are available here:
https://www.a3lifedesign.com/blog-english/category/Habits
