A common misconception is that we’re always making conscious decisions about what we do, how we act, and think. While we can influence this, most of the things we do are controlled by habits. To become more productive, get in better shape, change how you feel, and reach your goals, you have to change your habits first.
Let’s have a look at what habits are, how they affect your life, and how you change them for the better.
What are habits
Habits are everywhere in our daily lives, shaping everything we do, think, and, in the end, where we end up. According to researchers, around 40% of our behaviors are shaped by our habits.
Habits are repeated behaviors that, over time, have become automatic and unconscious. They can be as simple as scrolling through social to something as complex as your diet. No matter the kind of habit, they can have a powerful impact on your health, relationships, productivity, and much more.
You could say that you are the sum of your habits. You’ll never become more or less than they allow. If you want to change yourself, you need to change your habits first.
Why habits are important for self-improvement
Self-improvement can seem overwhelming at first. There might be a million things you’d like to change. Or maybe you have no clue about what you need to change. You just want to feel better.
No matter where you are between, having too many places to start and having none, you can begin your change by creating better habits. Here are some of the many benefits of creating better habits:
- Have a solid foundation for your life
- More energy
- Better self-esteem and -confidence
- Something to fall back to when things get tough
- Better productivity
- Less destructive behaviors
- Many small wins
- And much more
Habits are the foundation of self-improvement, personal growth, and overcoming trauma. Without changing them, you won’t be able to change yourself.
The best habits for self-improvement
There are several habits that can boost your self-improvement efforts. Some have a small impact, others can change your life. There are too many good habits to all be mentioned here. Therefore, we’ll only focus on the most important habits. Below, you’ll find a list of some of the best habits:
- Working out
- Reading
- Following a sleep schedule
- Eating healthy
- Having a morning routine
- Daily walks
- Journaling
- Meditating
The worst habits for self-improvement
While a lot of habits can help you improve, there are just as many that will harm your personal growth. Let’s have a look at some of the worst – and maybe not so obvious – habits for self-improvement:
- Procrastination
- Having a bad diet
- Comfort eating
- Not getting enough sleep
- Overusing phones
- Multitasking
- Being inactive
- Over complaining
- Negative self-talk
Most of us tend to do some of these occasionally. That’s not a problem. However, when done too much, they can have a serious negative impact on your physical and mental health.
Is there more than one type of habit?
There are several types of habits. Some might be easy to form, and others hard. Some might have little influence over your life, while others can change everything.
Understanding the different types of habits can make change easier, and you’ll better understand yourself and others. While the following four types of habits may overlap, it’s worth being aware of them all.
1. Keystone habits
Keystone habits are the most powerful kind of habits. When you create (or break) one of these, they will automatically form new habits in your life. These new behaviors can be good or bad, depending on the habits that triggered them. One of the easiest ways to improve your life is to form or get rid of these habits.
2. Identity-based habits
Identity-based habits are those you have or form because of who you are. These habits are the easiest to create as they don’t cause resistance to your idea of who you truly are and what you should be doing.
You can use these habits for change by beginning to identify yourself as a reader, a good student, or something else you would like to become. This makes it easier to find and form the right habits.
3. Physical habits
Physical habits are what most people think about when they think about habits. This kind covers everything you do physically, such as what you eat, whether you exercise, and how you spend your time. In other words, these habits control your productivity and physical health.
4. Mental habits
Mental habits are, for many, the most difficult kind to change by themselves. These habits make up most of your inner life. Your thoughts, emotions, and how you react to situations are determined by these.
You can’t see these habits, and most of them have been with you for years, usually since your early childhood. Because of this, many don’t see them as something they can change. Or don’t understand how. This makes people stuck in the same destructive mental patterns.
You can work on these habits by practicing mindfulness, journaling, or visiting a therapist.
Habit myths
Habit formation is a complex process. This leads to several myths and misinformation when it comes to habits. Some are harmless, while others can damage the long-term potential of your efforts. A few examples of common habit myths are:
- A habit is formed in a specific number of days (The 21/90 rule)
- Missing a day destroys your progress
- Big results needs big changes
- Willpower is enough
These are just a few examples, of the many myths that are out there. You can read more about habit myths here.
How are habits formed – The habit loop
For a behavior to become a habit, it needs to go through 3 stages. Cue, routine, and reward. When a behavior has gone through each stage enough times, it’ll transform into a habit. Let’s look at what happens in each and an example of how this might look.
In the example, we’ll look at how binge eating might fit into the habit loop.
1. Cue
The cue is what triggers the habit loop. It’s something that prompts you to do a specific behavior. The cue might be emotions, a time or location, a visual, or watching someone else do something.
Example:
You feel stressed, which creates a craving for food.
2. Routine
The routine is the response to the craving. It’s the action that the cue prompted. This is the stage that most people view as the actual habit.
Example:
When you feel stressed (cue) you begin to binge eat snacks or food.
3. Reward
The reward is the positive reinforcement that happens as a result of the routine. It alleviates a pain or provides a sense of pleasure. This is what keeps the habit alive.
Example:
After binge eating, you feel less stressed or a sense of pleasure from eating the snacks.
4. Loop closure
After the reward, the loop closes. Your brain takes notes of the relationship between the different stages. If the reward is satisfying, the habit will start to form. The more this is repeated, the more likely the loop is to become automatic and the harder it’ll be to break the habit.
How long does it take to form a habit
In 2009, a study was conducted to test how long it takes to form a habit. The subjects had to pick a simple behavior and then repeat it until it became a habit. The study showed that it takes an average of 66 days to form a habit and between 18-254 days.
There are several factors that determine how long it will take you to form a habit. How much you enjoy it, how easy it is, how closely it ties to your identity, how it’s placed compared to other habits, and how often you do it are just some examples of what determines how long it’ll take you.
How to form good habits
Good habits are the foundation for any success in life. You might have a decent mindset and understand people’s intentions. But if your habits suck, you won’t get to where you want to be. Without good habits, you will find it hard to find the time and energy to work on yourself and your dreams.
You can determine whether or not a habit is good by thinking about how it will affect you in the long run. Exercising might feel unpleasant when you do it, but it will improve your future. The more good habits you form, the more potential you have for a better future. Let’s look at 3 things you can do to form better habits.
Related: Small habits that can change your life
1. Habit stacking
Habit stacking is when you place a behavior you want to become a habit after one of your existing habits. When you do this often enough, the reward from the original habit will become a cue for the habit you want to form.
It can be paired with any habit, anywhere, and at any time of the day. It requires little effort yet is extremely effective. Habit stacking is, in my opinion, the easiest way to create good habits and routines.
2. Use the 20-second rule
The 20-second rule urges you to make it as easy as possible to start doing the behavior when it’s time – Preferably less than 20 seconds.
To do this, you need to prepare in advance. Pack your gym bag the day before, leave the book on the nightstand, or leave your work essentials ready on your desk. Anything you can do to remove friction between where you are now and until the behavior starts is effective.
When you remove friction, it’ll seem less overwhelming, and you won’t have the time to talk yourself out of doing it. The easier it is for you to start, the more likely you’ll be to do it and, over time, form a good habit.
Related: The 2 minute rule
3. Pair the new habit with a behavior you like
Another way to form a good habit is to pair it with something you already like doing.
Not all good habits are pleasant – especially not the first couple of times you try it. But when you pair it with something you like, it becomes more pleasant, and the reward bigger.
You can listen to your favorite podcast or good music while you exercise. What before might have been a boring activity is suddenly exciting. You’re not going to exercise anymore. You’re going out to listen to your favorite podcast while you move.
How to break bad habits
Every habit has a purpose. If not, you wouldn’t have done it in the first place. Smoking releases stress, and mindlessly scrolling through social media kills boredom. These behaviors might feel good, but they’re still bad habits as they have a negative long-term effect. The more bad habits you have, the less likely you are to reach your goals.
Let’s have a look at 3 things you can do to break your bad habits.
1. Remove temptation
Every habit is the result of a cue. These cues are a sort of temptation that prompts you to do the bad habits. A simple way to break your bad habits is to remove this temptation.
If you’re struggling with binge eating, you can make sure that you have no comfort foods at home. The habit of overusing social media might be solved by deleting the SoMe icons from your home screen. The examples could be endless.
Two things happen when you remove the temptation.
- You limit the exposure to the cue. This disrupts the habit loop, and you’ll be more likely to not feel any cravings
- You make it more difficult to do the habit. This might shift the effort/reward scale, and the bad habit might suddenly not seem worth it.
Removing temptation is a great first step to breaking any bad habit.
2. Create a new habit in it’s place
Creating a new habit to replace the bad habit is probably one of the most complex approaches, but also the most effective. To fully understand this strategy, you’ll need to have a basic understanding of the habit loop mentioned earlier.
When you try to replace a bad habit, you have to find a new routine that provides the same reward as the reward, as the original routine. Here are a few examples of how this might look.
- Your bad habit is binge-watching to relieve boredom. You might replace it with reading.
- If your bad habit is smoking to relieve stress, you might replace it by taking a walk.
- Your bad habit is overthinking. You might be able to replace it with thought journaling.
While this approach is extremely effective, it does take some trial and error. You’ll rarely find the solution on your first try. But once you do, you’ll find that the bad habit is easy to get rid of.
3. Wait 10 minutes
With the 3. approach, you won’t focus on breaking the bad habit. Instead, you’ll train yourself to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of being with a craving. Here’s how you do it.
Whenever you feel a strong craving for something that you’re trying to stop doing, you wait 10 minutes. You set a timer on your phone and wait until it reaches 0. When your timer rings, you can do one of three things.
- You can go ahead and relieve your craving
- You can set another timer and reevaluate your decision
- You can move on and not do the behavior you’re trying to avoid.
While this approach won’t break your bad habit straight away, it can help you do so over time. Here’s a few reasons why.
- When you sit with the unpleasant feeling of a craving, you train your willpower. This makes it easier to resist temptation
- Often, the craving will fade when you don’t do it straight away. This will make it easier to make rational decisions
- You teach yourself that it’s okay to crave something without getting it.
To make this approach even more effective, you might spend the 10 minutes meditating. Another thing that can help you resist temptation and break a bad habit.
Tips for building better habits
Now that we have had a look at a few approaches for breaking and forming habits, we can look at a few general tips that work well for both. Below, you’ll find 6 tips that help you get the habits you need to succeed in life.
1. Have clear intentions
It can be difficult to do something if you don’t know why you’re doing it. That’s why clear intentions are crucial for creating better habits.
It can be beneficial to consider your intentions before starting. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to make this easier.
- What do I want to achieve?
- Why do I want to achieve this?
- What do I expect from forming/breaking this habit?
- Does the habit align with my goals? If not, which habit would?
It doesn’t take long to answer these questions, but doing so can help you succeed.
2. Use a habit tracker
A habit tracker is one of the most effective tools for creating better habits in your life. It’s a tool that helps you keep track of your ongoing habits. You can learn more about what it is and how to use one here.
3. Reward yourself
We often tend to punish ourselves – either physically or mentally – when things don’t go to plan. In some cases, it might be helpful, but more often than not, it has the opposite effect. Instead of helping us do better, it might make us more likely to fail again in the future.
Instead of punishing yourself when things go wrong, you might find that celebrating progress is far more effective.
There are several ways to do this, and how your rewards look is up to you. You can learn more about why rewarding yourself works and how to do it here.
4. Use a habit scorecard
Nothing happens in isolation. Most of your habits are dependent on other habits. It can be difficult to change your habits without understanding what habits you actually have and how they happen in relation to other behaviors.
The habit scorecard is a great tool for creating this overview. With the habit scorecard, you’ll create a list of all your habits and an understanding of your good and bad habits. This makes it easier to understand yourself and create better habits.
5. Start small
It’s tempting to go all in from the beginning when starting something new. To do all the right things and avoid all the bad. While this might mean fast progress in the beginning, it usually tends to end as fast as it began. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t commit to change, but you should be realistic about how much you can take on. It’s better to get there slowly than to never get there at all.
As a rule of thumb, you should never try to change more than 1 or 2 habits at a time. Slowly work on changing those before you move on to the next. Instead of trying to change who you are by tomorrow, try to aim for getting 1% better every day. Slow, constant growth is the recipe for any success.
Related: How to start small with the 5-minute rule
6. Be patient
And finally, be patient. Both with yourself and the process. Real change takes time, and not every day is gonna be perfect. From time to time, you’ll miss a day. But this won’t undo all your progress. Just make sure you never miss 2 days in a row.
Be patient with yourself, stay committed to your goal, and before you know it, you’ll get further than you ever believed you could.
Final thoughts
Habits are the foundation for anything in your life. They determine who you are, what you’re doing, and where you’ll end up. Understanding what they are and how to change them is crucial if you want to grow and reach your full potential.
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