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The Habit Ladder: How To Make A New Routine Stick
How Habits Work
A habit - a mini-system that once you create, becomes automatic to your body, with minimal interference from the brain.
The Habit Loop is a breakdown of a habit put it into three sections:
- Cue: A certain trigger that awakens the habit
- Routine: The action you perform without thinking.
- Reward: The change you experience making you want to do more of the same.
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Habit Ladder
This is a system that is automated by you. It is called a habit ladder because, from the time you wake up to finishing your first work task of the day, you're climbing up one rung at a time. Each new step is reached because of the last.
How Habits Work
A habit - a mini-system that once you create, becomes automatic to your body, with minimal interference from the brain.
The Habit Loop is a breakdown of a habit put it into three sections:
- Cue: A certain trigger that awakens the habit
- Routine: The action you perform without thinking.
- Reward: The change you experience making you want to do more of the same.
Making a Habit Ladder
Keep a trigger cue ready and stack up the routine in such a way that your tasks become a habitual routine without any friction, each trigger cue and routine stacked over the next one.
Example: Put on running shoes instead of slippers in the morning and that's your cue to go out for a walk, then when you are back and feeling sweaty, that's your cue to take a bath.
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The Habit Loop
The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue.
Together, these fo...
5 primary ways that a new habit can be triggered
- Cue 1: Time - Most common way to trigger a new habit
- Cue 2: Location - Most powerful driver of mindless habits and also the least recognized
- Cue 3: Preceding Event - Many habits are a response to something else that happens in your life
- Cue 4: Emotional State - emotional state is a common cue for bad habits
- Cue 5: Other People - people you surround yourself with can play a role in your habits and behaviors.
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Habit Stacking
One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top - habit stacking.
Habit stacking is a spec...
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The power of morning routines
- Routines drastically reduce the amount of logistical and psychological friction in between us and our goals.
- Good routines are also powerful motivation generators. In add...
The secret to productive mornings
Forget about getting up insanely early every morning. How much time we have in the mornings is far less important than how we spend the time we do have.
Prep your day the evening before
Reduce the number of decisions and tasks you have to do each morning in between waking up and doing your work:
- Decide on and lay out your clothes for the following day the evening before and gather all other pieces of stuff you need (supplies, equipment).
- Make your breakfast and lunch the night before and have it ready to grab in the fridge.
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Habit matching
When planning on building new habits, one easy way to integrate them into your everyday routine is by actually adding them to an already existing habit.
Therefore, choose one habit y...
A step at a time
Once you have made up your mind about taking on a new habit, you might as well start getting used to it. Just remember that we have, as humans, the tendency to work better without pressure and when taking one step at a time.
Therefore, start by creating small habits and get used to them and you will see how easy it is to build long-lasting routines that will make your life easier.
Practice makes perfect
When having taken the decision to introduce in your routine a new habit, it is very important to remember that practice makes perfect. Consequently, wait no more and start doing even if just a bit every day. You will eventually succeed in adding a new habit while feeling proud of yourself for being consistent.
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Keystone Habits
They tend to have ripple effects which change your behavior in unexpected ways.
The power of a keystone habit draws from its ability to set off a chain reaction that causes other...
Examples of Keystone Habits
Exercising regularly is for many people a keystone habit because when they do it, they also make healthier eating and life choices and procrastinate less.
Other keystone habits include: meditation, reading, writing and socialising. They provide a nice foundation for a healthy life in all domains
Identify Your Keystone Habits
Look for behaviors that have a ripple effect, and change your other behaviors without extra effort.
Also, pay attention to how you see yourself when you do a particular habit: Does it change your self-image? Do you feel better when you think of yourself as a person?
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SMART Resolutions
Pick a goal that is meaningful and doable, making sure it's coming from inside you, not imposed by others.
Make specific, realistic plans for your New Year Goal using the time-tested SMART Te...
Creating a Plan
Chances are you won't just wake up one day and suddenly change your life. To go where you want to go, you have to chart out a plan.
Quitting Bad Habits
For example: If you feel the cue of smoking, replace the smoking with some other activity like having a cup of coffee.
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Willpower is Limited
Though companies like Nike try to ignite our willpower with their slogans, ultimately willpower cannot squash our subconscious and unconscious behavior.
Repetition of action and thought can m...
Knowledge is not Enough
If you know that you will eat junk food because your refrigerator is filled with it, remove all the junk food.
Friction
Just as removing friction aids in doing the activity more often, adding friction can aid to remove the bad habit, by making it difficult or cumbersome to do so.
Example: Cigarette smoking declined due to adding taxes, banning in public places and removing from vending machines.
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What learning is
There are two kinds of thinking, focused and diffused.
Focused thinking involves working on a singular task.
Diffused thinking happens when you’r...
Procrastination and how to combat it
Procrastination usually happens when you reach a difficult point and find it uncomfortable to keep going.
The Pomodoro technique is effective in combatting this. This is where you work for 25 minutes, then take a break for 5 minutes.
Sleep your way to better learning
Sleep is perhaps the best way to engage unconscious diffused thinking.
Being in focused mode is to brain cells what lifting weights is to muscles. You’re breaking them down.
Sleep provides an opportunity for them to repaired and for new connections to be formed.
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Habit tracking
Is a simple and effective thing to do if you want to stick with a habit for good. No matter the format (calendar, journal, app), it provides immediate evidence whether you are making progress or...
The power of habit tracking:
- It creates a visual cue that can remind you to act.
- It is motivating to see the progress you are making. You don't want to break your streak.
- It feels satisfying to record your success in the moment.
To make habit tracking easier:
- Manual tracking should be limited to your most important habits.
- Record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs.
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Chunking - The Root of Habits
The process in which the brain converts a sequence of actions into an automatic routine is known as ‘chunking,’ and it’s at the root of how habits form.
Habits emerge...
...because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort.
It will try to make almost any routine into a habit, because habits allow our minds to ramp down more often. This effort-saving instinct is a huge advantage.
The 3 Step Loop of Habit Formation:
- First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use.
- Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional.
- Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future.
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