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What are the Limits of Building Better Habits?
When habits are useful
- Habits are useful when you focus on patiently persisting over a long period, rather than short bursts.
- The behavior you require can eventually run on autopilot while not requiring lots of deliberate effort.
- You're looking to make long-term changes to your routine or lifestyle rather than a temporary condition.
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SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Willpower is like a muscle
Just like going to the gym and building up strength, the more you train your willpower by accomplishing tasks on a consistent basis
Habits = “automatic” responses...
...to familiar environmental cues.
They form when you engage in a behavior repeatedly in the presence of consistent stimuli.
Self-Discipline - a series of healthy habits
Long term change is better served by building better habits, than by forcing your willpower.
You will choose the apple over the cake for a number of times ... and then give up. Building a habit to start the day by going to the gym will work better.
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Key Ideas
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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Key Ideas
Building habits
The basic process for building all habits is basically the same: you repeatedly condition the behavior you want, over time, until it becomes automatic.
But no habit starts out auto...
Conditioning a habit
- Classical conditioning: a paired association with a trigger and a behavior. Going to the gym after you wake up each morning is this kind of habit.
- Operant conditioning: you not only associate a trigger with a behavior, but you reward that pairing, to accelerate the habit-forming process.
The 30-Day Trial
You commit to some change for 30 days, then tou can go back to your old ways. But having spent thirty days applying a new behavior is often enough to convince you to stick with it.
Pros:
- Can handle more significant/difficult behavior changes you might be unlikely to start with a perpetual commitment.
- Fosters an experimental mindset, rather than assuming you already know what’s best.
Cons:
- 30 days probably isn’t enough to actually make something a habit.
- Without a long-term plan, many 30-day trials will revert back to the original behavior.