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Stop Confusing Habits for Routines: What You Need To Know
Habits and behavior change
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Key Ideas
Habits are a type of learning
They generate an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought.
By forming a habit, the brain frees the mind to do other things without deliberation. So behaviors that require concentration, deliberation, or extended effort, are not habits.
What drives motivation
Motivation is not driven by pleasure and pain, but rather by the desire to escape discomfort.
Our brains get our bodies to do what they want through discomfort. And the same rule applies to psychological discomfort.
Habits, routines and effort
- A habit is an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought. Not doing a habit feels uncomfortable, like not washing your hands after using the toilet or not flossing your teeth before bed.
- A routine is a behavior frequently repeated. Unlike a habit, skipping a routine doesn’t feel bad and without proper forethought, can be easily skipped or forgotten.
Forming habits
- Start with a routine and stick to it.
- Make time in your schedule for your routine. Without this, chances are it’ll never get done.
- Learn to manage discomfort. New routines won’t be effortless, so you can learn coping techniques to deal with discomfort in a healthier manner.
- Find ways to pre-commit. You can find someone to hold you accountable, for example.
- Remember not to try and turn hard-to-do behaviors into habits. Doing so risks frustration and failure.
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The Confusion Of Habit and Routine
Habits are programmed human behaviors with little or zero conscious thought. Habits free our minds to other things, but our behavior isn’t always on autopilot. There are many tasks that require con...
Understanding Motivation
Neurologically speaking, motivation is the desire to escape psychological discomfort or a life situation that is not giving us any kind of ‘pleasure’.
Most behaviors are prompted by discomfort. If we are hungry, we eat. If we are lonely, we call up a friend. If we are bored, we turn on the TV.
The Test
If we are procrastinating instead of doing a certain task, telling ourselves that we would it later, it is a sure sign that the task isn’t a habit which can be done on autopilot but is, in fact, a routine.
Anything that requires effort is easy to forget or postpone.
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Intense focus
It happens only when:
- You define your goals clearly
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The limits of habits
Habit-building is a powerful tool for self-improvement. But the power of the tool can also create some overreach. In one way, habits will fail to form.
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Not all behaviors can be easily automated
Many habits are simply routines, but not all of them. _For example, there isn't a habit for a hard workout at the gym - you won't become absent-minded midway through a benchpress.
- Habits are behaviors that flow automatically from a set of prompts.
- Routines are behaviors we repeatedly do but involve many deliberate actions done with some effort and thinking.
Habits aren’t commitments
- A commitment is a rule you've added for yourself. "I must exercise five times per week." But if you break that commitment, it can result in a backsliding effect.
- A habit is that behavior that happens automatically from a triggering situation.
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