The Habit loop of Charles Duhigg says that a habit is not just a simply behavior.
It’s a three-part system:
- A Trigger: the situation that sets off the habit
- The Behavior: routine you have, things you do
- The Reward: it’s the thing that, after you have done the habit, makes your brain says “Oh yes, do it again!”
- Figure your trigger. Without knowing what sets off your old habit, it’s almost impossible to change it to a new habit. (Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit)
We keep doing our habits (good and bad) because of the rewards we get. To help embed the habit, get clear on the reward you will get from moving from a current to a new habit. (Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to build Habit-Forming Products)
- Suppressing the bad habit is not the way. The more you try to push the bad habit out of your mind, the more it pops up. (Jeremy Dean, creator of PsyBlog and author of Making Habits,Breaking Habit)
- Define a new habit to take less than 1 minute, as these are harder to hack (i.e. finding an excuse not to do it). Make your new habit specific and accomplishable in sixty seconds or less.
(BJ Fogg, creator of the TiniHabits.com website)
- Don’t try to build 10 new habits at once. Focus on creating just one habit at a time. Pick one and really focus on it. (Leo Babuta author of the blog and book ZenHabits.net)
- Don’t just define your habit, Practice it mindfully, thoughtfully and deeply. After defining your new habit, learn what is like when you are doing this new habit well, rather than doing it approximately. (Dan Coyle author of The Talent Code)
- Define continually finish lines that keeps you fresh, allowing you to keep celebrating your success as you cross them. Create lots of smaller challenges rather than one endless one. (Tony Stubblebine, creator of Coach.me App)
