Habits: Make behaviour satisfying or unsatisfying
We tend to repeat behaviours that are immediately satisfying and avoid behaviours that are not.
Increase the chance of successfully building a new habit by making the behaviour immediately satisfying, and of breaking an existing habit by making the behaviour not immediately satisfying.
We tend to repeat behaviours that are immediately satisfying to us. For example, eating junk food, watching series and movies, scrolling through social media, playing video games, taking a hot shower, smoking a cigarette or listening to music. We tend to avoid behaviours that are not immediately satisfying to us. For example, studying or learning a skill, saving money, exercising regularly, eating nutritious foods or practising mindfulness.
From an evolutionary point of view, our brains are hardwired to seek immediate rewards. Our ancestors, from non-human ancestors to hunter-gatherers, lived in immediate-return environments in which their actions immediately produced clear results. To survive, they had to constantly focus on the present or immediate future, to find food, water and shelter, and avoid predators. The distant future was of less importance to them. Nowadays we live in a delayed-return environment. Many of our actions and choices do not benefit us immediately, sometimes taking years to yield the intended rewards. Our brains have not evolved to deal with such delayed rewards.
We value the present more than the future. Like any other bias, this works well most of the time, but occasionally causes problems. Bad habits are regularly repeated behaviours that harm us in the long run. We repeat these harmful behaviours because they provide us with an immediate reward, while the long-term negative consequences are not immediately noticeable. Their rewards lie in the present, and their potential costs lie in the future. Smoking cigarettes has many adverse physical effects in the long term, but it rewards smokers immediately, for example by making them feel relaxed. Routinely drinking sugary drinks contributes to obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes in the long term, but consuming these drinks immediately stimulates our brain's reward system, making us feel good.
Many good habits don’t reward us immediately, but only in the long term, which makes them difficult to build and maintain. Their costs are in the present, and their potential rewards are in the future. Healthy eating does not provide immediate satisfaction, but it does lead to better health and vitality in the long term. Investing time in learning new skills may not yield immediate benefits, but it improves personal and professional development in the long term. Working towards distant goals does not provide instant gratification, but it gives life a sense of purpose and direction.
The best way to encourage behaviour that is good for you in the long run is to add an immediate reward to the behaviour (making it satisfying). The best way to break behaviour that is bad for you in the long run is to add an immediate punishment to the behaviour (make it unsatisfying).
⚒️ Build and break habits: Use reinforcement
Reinforcement is making a behaviour satisfying by adding an immediate reward at the end of the behaviour. Reinforcement links your behaviour to the immediate reward, making it more likely that you will repeat the behaviour. Take a bubble bath, eat a small piece of chocolate, or take a 10-minute break to do something you enjoy.
Reinforcement can also be used for behaviours you want to quit, such as smoking, drinking alcohol or excessive social media usage. Resisting temptation is not very satisfying. Make it satisfying by immediately rewarding the instants when you avoid something you want to stop doing. Do you want to light a cigarette, but you don't? Then transfer one euro to a special savings account. Make it satisfying to resist temptation.
It's important to choose satisfying rewards that align with your life purpose , personal values and the type of person you want to be. Rewarding yourself with unhealthy snacks or sweet treats can conflict with your value of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Using shopping as a reward can conflict with your personal value of financial security.
Ultimately, intrinsic benefits such as greater well-being, a sense of achievement, stress reduction and increased energy levels will make external rewards unnecessary. Once the habit becomes part of your identity, you do it because it is who you are.
⚒️ Build habits: Track your habits
Increase your chances of successfully building a habit by making your progress visible with a habit tracker.
Making progress in building a habit is satisfying, and making this progress visible increases the feeling of satisfaction. As a result, the behaviour gets reinforced. People who track their progress on habits such as losing weight are more likely to make progress than those who don’t.
A habit tracker is a simple way to indicate whether you have performed a habit. For example, you can mark each day you perform the habit on a calendar. Or you can move marbles from one bowl to another. Habit tracking makes a behaviour obvious: seeing the visual cues of your progress can remind you to do the behaviour again. It also makes the behaviour attractive: every small win that is tracked increases your craving for the behaviour. And it makes the behaviour satisfying: it is satisfying to record your wins and see your results grow.
Tracking habits helps you focus on the process rather than the result. It encourages you to show up to keep the winning streak intact. It provides visual proof that you are behaving according to the type of person you want to be.
Tracking habits requires some effort and attention, so only track your most important habits. Record each measurement immediately after the habit is performed. Always stay aware of the purpose of tracking: to help you build a desired habit so you become the type of person you want to be. If tracking gets in the way of this purpose, it is no longer useful and you will need to track progress in another way.
⚒️ Build habits: Never miss twice
Inevitably, circumstances will occasionally prevent you from performing a desired habit. If this happens, make sure you don't miss next time: never miss twice. One miss won't break your habit, but a series of misses might. Show up even if you can’t perform the habit as well as you would like. It’s important to reinforce that you are the type of person who shows up even when you don’t feel like it.
⚒️ Build and break habits: Create habit contracts
Habits that are bad for us in the long term usually have immediate rewards. We can make performing bad habits unsatisfying by adding some immediate pain to the end of the behaviour. Habits that are good for us in the long term usually don’t yield immediate rewards. We can make not performing good habits unsatisfying by adding some immediate pain when we don’t perform the desired behaviour. To be effective, this pain must be immediate, tangible and concrete. An effective way to add negative consequences to a behaviour is to create a habit contract.
A habit contract is an agreement between you and one or two people who act as your accountability partners. In the contract you state that you will adhere to a certain behaviour, and you define the immediate punishment for not keeping your commitment. For example, a contract with your gym buddy or personal trainer in which you commit to a daily workout of 30 minutes. If you miss a workout, you have to donate 10 euros to a charity you dislike. Or a contract with your financial advisor or a trusted family member in which you commit to saving 10% of your monthly income every month. For every month you don't do this, you have to cook dinner for your family for a week.
⚒️ Build and break habits: Get an accountability partner
An accountability partner is someone who helps you stay on track with the commitments you’ve made to yourself. You share your commitment to sticking with or breaking a habit with your accountability partner. Accountability partners contact you regularly to discuss your progress. They remind you of deadlines and goals you have set for yourself and encourage you.
Involving someone else in your goals increases your dedication to achieving them, because there is an immediate emotional cost if you don't. You are a social animal. You generally care about what others think of you, especially if you know them personally. You don’t want to disappoint others. In the presence of others, you strive to match your actions with your words. Others may think less of you if you don't. And you may feel guilty or ashamed, which can create a sense of personal failure.
🎉👏🎈
Making behaviour satisfying or unsatisfying is a powerful tool for building and breaking habits. It is based on the fourth step of James Clear’s four-step habit model: cue, craving, response, and reward. Always keep your ultimate goal in mind: becoming 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
