how to start any habit and why you should do it (ultimate guide)

Why you don’t really need to run in the morning, 5 push-ups are better than 30, and no one knows how long a habit actually forms

Habit is a tool

Imagine Masha, who saw the story of her favorite blogger about how cool it is to run in the morning. How it motivates, energizes and generally changes lives. She wanted the same. I decided that tomorrow at 7 am she will run. Masha ran and this went on for several days, but one Saturday morning a question crept into her mind. “Do I need to run today? What for? Today is Saturday! You can get some sleep!”. And she gave up.

Why did it happen? Masha really didn’t need the habit. She just wanted to be like her favorite blogger and mistakenly thought that the habit would help her in this.

It’s also called external motivation. When we heard something, saw it, looked at it, and now “We want it the same way” and don’t even think “Do we need it?”

Run because your favorite blogger runs, learn English because everyone does, get up early because Tim Cook gets up early, you get the idea…

External motivation is fleeting and fickle, it is better not to count on it.

✅ And what you should count on is the inner one, when you understand why you want to make a habit, how it will help you and why you can’t do without it

But what if you don’t know what habit to start? And is it needed at all?

→ There is one cool trick: build on your goals. A habit is something that will help you reach your goal faster.

Let’s say that there are no problems with setting goals and we want, for example, to learn English. This is where we might think, “What habit can I get into to learn it faster?”

The following habits will do:

– learn 5 new words every day

— practice 15 minutes in the grammar app

– listen to 15 minutes of a podcast in English

→ In a month, this will be 150 new words, several additionally studied grammatical structures and an improved understanding of speech. A good help to the main goal!

The habit is not only to run in the morning

When we hear the word “habit”, our first associations are: run in the morning, do exercises, get up early, drink a glass of water a day. But a habit can do anything.

You can teach yourself not to be distracted, control spending, study, write articles, not eat junk food, get enough sleep, gradually get rid of information addiction. A well-built habit can change any area of ​​your life, there are no limits.

→ Three examples where we will see atypical application of a habit:

✅ We set ourselves the goal of accumulating a million rubles by the end of the year.. When we set this goal, we realized that we need to better count money, since we seem to be earning enough, but nothing is accumulating. You can make a simple habit – every day before breakfast for 5-10 minutes, make all the expenses for the previous day, systematize them and look for ways to save money. At a distance we will find many solutions and unexpected leaks that will help our goal.

✅ We have an information addiction and we can’t move away from the phone (laptop/any device). Then it will be a great habit to replace the phone with an e-book or just do nothing. That is, instead of picking up the phone, form the habit of just sitting or going for a walk.

✅ We want to diversify our weekends and spend them more actively. Planning your weekend is also a habit. You can plan your weekend every Wednesday: look for interesting places, study guides, book tickets.

One small step for one big habit

Let’s say Masha wants to do push-ups 30 times a day.

At the very thought “I need to do 30 push-ups”, you can already take a deep breath and put it off for later, but at the thought “Squeeze 5 times”, such a desire does not arise.

→ Everyone can push up 5 times and it only takes 20 seconds

Linking habit to habit

It is better not to tie the habit to the exact time (we can skip it) and free time (we may not find it).

✅ The best option is to tie a new habit to a permanent action (another habit)so we will not forget about it and build a new habit into an already established behavior pattern: woke up – you need to run, sat down at the table – you need to fill out a diary, had breakfast – sat down 15 times, poured coffee – started reading an e-book.

But I have almost no habits other than brushing my teeth and taking a daily shower, what should I do?

If it seems to you that you have few habits, then watch yourself for several days: you will see a lot of repetitive daily actions that you do automatically and do not even notice it.

When preparing breakfast, we do a lot of automatic actions: we enter the kitchen, open the refrigerator, take out the dishes, put the kettle on, set the table, clean up and wash the dishes.

Next to each automatic action, you can insert a habit:

• As soon as we open the refrigerator – we drink water (putting a bottle of water in advance)

• In the morning we go to the kitchen – we do physical exercises

• As soon as we finish a cup of coffee, we open the laptop and plan the day

Put your sneakers in front of the bed

I put my sneakers by the bed so that in the morning they would remind me of a run and there were no options for slipping

An excerpt from a book about habit formation

The point is to make the path from thought to action as simple as possible.

Imagine that you woke up in the morning for a run: you didn’t get enough sleep, your favorite T-shirt is dirty, and you can’t find sneakers at all. What’s the run here?

The more difficulties there are on the way from “Get out of bed” to “Run”, the more difficult it will be to form a habit.

✅ If you go to the gym, then pack your bag in advance. Run – prepare all the equipment in the evening. If you plan the day after breakfast, leave your laptop on the kitchen table in the evening.

Have something automatically remind you of the habit. A book on the table, the right app on the first screen of a smartphone, healthy food bought in advance.

💡 Life hack: the habit of eating healthy food for breakfast is also connected with the habit of buying it. You can start by ensuring that there is always something useful in the refrigerator.

Think what could go wrong

What happens if you don’t get breakfast? If you are late? Will it rain in the morning?

Situations “Wow, it’s raining, how can I run?” or “Damn, I overslept, which means no charge” should not be a surprise. Running in the rain or not is up to you, but already at the moment of thinking through the habit, you should know what to do. (if something goes wrong).

Fridge stickers

We also need visual reinforcement. It can be anything: stickers on the refrigerator, a checklist on the to-do list, crosses on the walls, filling out a diary. This is especially helpful at first, before the habit has formed.

So we will look at the fact that we have been running for a week and cheer ourselves up “I have been running for a week! I am doing great!”

Be clear about your habit

Now, having gathered everything together, we need to formulate our habit: what we do, how many times (or time)When (after some other habit)what can interfere with us and how we will solve it, in what way we will mark the implementation of the habit.

Ideally, add something that will remind you of the habit (those same sneakers in front of the bed).

It should look something like this:

More life hacks

✅ One habit at a time

“Run every day at 07:00” are two habits. It will be necessary to get up at 07:00, and then also run.

When we start a new habit, our habitual lifestyle changes, and this is difficult. Therefore, first you need to 100% get the first habit, and then think about the rest.

✅ Add external motivation

If you have a clear internal motivation, then the external one can help additionally. Tell your friends you’re about to start a new habit, make a public promise, or post it on your page.

You can start with a friend, this will give additional excitement.

✅ Myth about 21 days

There is a myth that it takes 21 days to form a habit.

In 2009 this has already been refuted: they conducted a new scientific experiment (which refers specifically to habits) and it turned out that, on average, people need 66 days to form a new habit. In general, it took study participants 18 to 254 days to develop a new habit.

It turns out that everything is individual (as usual) and someone’s habit will be fixed in 18 days, and someone will need 254. That is, there is no exact figure.

✅ Show yourself that with a habit is better than without it

Habits make our life better, so notice it!

If now you get up half an hour earlier, then take your time, take time for your hobby, cook a delicious breakfast and plan your day. Let this benefit be the motivation to get up earlier.

✅ Book “Atomic Habits”

A great book to read if you’re into habit-forming.

OK it’s all over Now! I hope that the article will be useful and you will finally be able to start a good habit! 😉

I also run a telegram channel Learning Man – about how to live and learn more effectively.