Our life is made up of years, years of months, months of days, days of moments, and moments of the choices we make at that very moment. Hence, in the nutshell, we are our choices.
When to get up, what to eat, whom to talk to, how to talk, how to spend our days, light a cigarette, what shirt to wear, and a million others.
Each decision, of course, carries certain consequences with it that are both good and bad. The question now comes,
If we get so many choices to choose our life at every step, why do we struggle to take control? Why do we struggle to choose good habits or break the bad ones?Â
Great Question, let’s figure it out.
This article is my learnings from the masterpiece book, Atomic Habits by James Clear on proven ways to build good habits and break bad ones.Â
The Habit Loop
According to James Clear, the habit-making or breaking process involves four standard laws of the Habit Loop.
#1 Law - Make it Obvious
Like every other thing in life, the habit-making or breaking process starts with self-reflection. You can never change the habits you are not aware of.Â
James recommends consciously noticing your day and writing down all the things you do even subconsciously. The idea is to be aware of the habits throughout the day rather than moving on autopilot.Â
Once you have a decent idea of how your day works, you can think about the slots where your new desired habits can fit. You can always relate one action with another like, When situation X arises, I will perform response Y.
Here, X is your already existing habit and Y is the new habit you want to build.
To reduce the uncertainty, try to mention the exact date and time when you want to build the habit: I will [BEHAVIOR] at [TIME] in [LOCATION].
E.g. I will [EXERCISE] at [7pm] in my [LOCAL GYM].
Yet another amazing strategy is habit stacking where you combine something you want to do with something you need to do.Â
The habit stacking formula is: After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].Â
E.g. After [I pour my morning cup of coffee], I will [meditate for 2 mins].
The idea of the first law is to make the habit as obvious as you can’t ignore it. You need to design your environment in such a way that the hints of the new habits are very much visible to be incorporated into your daily life. Â
On the other hand, if you want to break a bad habit, the process is similar. Be aware of the bad habit and start noticing the triggers for that habit, e.g. short-term stress triggers the urge to smoke. Design your environment to make the triggers almost invisible or impossible. If you don’t buy cigarettes or you don’t keep them at home, the exposure to the bad habit of smoking will get reduced.Â
#2 Law - Make it Attractive
Once you have decided which habit to build, you need to make the habit attractive enough to increase the odds of its occurrence.Â
Habits are a dopamine-driven feedback loop.
Every behavior that is highly habit-forming - taking drugs, eating junk food, playing video games, social media - is associated with a higher level of dopamine. Hence, whenever you predict that a habit will be rewarding (e.g. going to the gym makes you look sexy at your brother’s wedding), your levels of dopamine spike in anticipation, and so does your motivation to act (actually going to the gym).Â
Over the years, scientists have proven that behaviors are attractive when they help us fit in with the world around us and hence we try to imitate the habits of the close, the many, and the powerful to develop a sense of connection with the people around us.
That’s the reason why our parents have warned us all our lives about staying away from bad company. If someone around you smokes, you are 90% more prone to be a smoker in the coming months.
One of the most effective ways to develop a habit is to join a culture where your desired habit is the normal behavior and your chances of adapting the habit increase by 68%. Hence the hack is to fit the desired habit in a way that the behavior can get us approval, respect, and praise and we will automatically find it attractive.Â
#3 Law - Make it Easy
While developing a habit, we are so focused on finding the best approach that we never get around to taking action. Reading 100s of books on starting a business will not help you start the business until you take action (attack xD).
The fundamental of the third law is to develop any habit, you need to take the first step, as small as it can be but you need to take action. If you want to start a business, buying a domain can be your first step. If you want to build a body, showing up at gym can be your first step. If you want to write a book, starting with one character description from any one idea can be your first but the idea is to take action.
And for helping your brain take action, you need to make the action as easy as it could be.
James calls it the 2-minute rule: when you start a new habit, it should take you less than 2 minutes to do it. Over time, the two minutes will be compounded and let you dive deep into the focus where extraordinary results will happen but the key idea is to make it as easy to master the habit of showing up.Â
Similarly, the best way to break a bad habit is to make it impractical to do. Increase the friction or develop your environment in such a way that you don’t even have the option to act on your bad habits.Â
#4 Law - Make it Satisfying
So imagine (in a parallel world) you have done everything to develop a habit but making it obvious, easy and even attractive but when you have built the habit, it’s not as satisfying as you expected to be. What are your chances of repeating the habit? Almost minimal.
The first three laws are to develop the habit but the forth law is to ensure that the habit gets repeated enough times to be a part of the new lifestyle and for that, you need to make the habit satisfying.
But there’s a catch, our minds are not looking for any satisfaction, we are mostly looking for immediate satisfaction to get the motivation to repeat the particular habit because for our brain, a reward that is certain right now is typically worth more than the one that is merely possible in the future.Â
So what to do?
In a perfect world, the reward for a good habit is the habit itself but in the real world, the best way to trick our brain is to add a little bit of immediate pleasure to the habits that pay off in the long run and a bit of immediate pain to the ones that don’t.Â
Immediate rewards are essential in the beginning as you need a reason to stay on track. They keep you excited while the delayed rewards accumulate in the background.
The most effective way to continue a habit is via Habit Tracking. Â
Just create a to-do list or a tracker and continue to mark the progress. If you pay attention, habit tracking itself is a habit but it is obvious, attractive, easy, and of course, satisfying to qualify all the parameters of a good habit.Â
Habit tracking has benefits as well: 1. It acts as a trigger reminder to perform the habit 2. It is motivating as you can see your progress visually and 3. You feel satisfied while recording a habit or ticking off the habitÂ
This is how my habit tracking looks like hanging right in front of my wall for this month.
Having an accountability partner is also an effective way to develop a habit alongside.Â
On bad days
No matter how consistent you are with your habits, it is inevitable that life will interrupt you. But James states a rule of thumb in such situations, never miss twice.
If you miss a gym day once, that’s okay but if you miss the second day as well, you are very less likely to go the whole week.Â
Anyone can have a bad day at work or a bad workout but when successful people fail, they rebound quickly and hence try to get into the spiral of missed habits as soon as possible.Â
I hope this article helps in building a good habit or breaking a bad one. For a more detailed view of every topic, I highly recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear.Â
I would love to connect with you all on Twitter or LinkedIn for more discussions!
Until then, stay curious and keep asking great questions :)Â