Accelerate Habit Formation by Linking New Routines to Established Ones

Habits play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy way of life. This piece will offer a "trick" designed to assist you in developing habits quicker and with less effort by connecting new routines to ones you've already established.

How Do Habits Work?

You can learn more about the science of building habits in mine. full article about habits .

Here’s a quick overview:

Habits are triggered by cues present in your surroundings. Forming new habits involves associating an action with these cues, followed directly by receiving a reward after performing the action.

Common habit cues are:

• A certain time — Perhaps you start your day by turning on the coffee pot every morning at 6:45 AM immediately after getting out of bed.
• An emotion - You grab your phone whenever you feel bored or require a diversion.
• A previous action – You enter through the front door and place your keys on the table.
• A location – When you visit the cinema, you munch on popcorn.

The prompt, action, and incentive form a cycle. When this cycle is repeated numerous times, it becomes ingrained in your mind and operates automatically.

Initially, when the action is entirely novel, it can be challenging to repeatedly perform your desired habit with consistency. To establish a long-lasting routine, you must engage in that behavior numerous times over.

You might be familiar with the idea that it takes about 21 days to develop a habit, but quite possibly this is not entirely accurate. study on habit-building discovered that, typically, it required 66 days to develop a habit. In that research, for certain individuals, this process could take as long as 254 days.

There's quite a bit of redundancy here. My role is to assist you in getting through those repetitions.

Ways to Speed Up and Simplify Habit Formation

You can develop new habits quicker and with less effort by using your current ones as a foundation.

You already possess routines within your everyday schedule. By utilizing one of these routines as a trigger, you'll basically be leveraging the neural pathways of your existing habits. This can provide an advantage when establishing a new habit.

For instance, suppose I aim to incorporate daily foam rolling into my regimen to aid with post-workout recovery. Rather than just expecting myself to fit it in sometime during the day, I will connect it to my morning routine instead.

Each time I step into my kitchen early in the morning, I instantly switch on the kettle to prepare a cup of tea.

I can link that habit to my objective by choosing to perform 3 minutes of foam rolling right when I switch on the kettle.

I planned to boil some water anyhow, which serves as my signal to begin foam rolling. Additionally, after the water heats up, I'll enjoy a nice cup of tea. This moment can be included as part of the reward within my routine, coupled with the satisfaction and fulfillment derived from sticking to my schedule.

After I make this a daily practice consistently, foam rolling will naturally turn into a habit. From there, I can expand upon it further.

Ways to Utilize Your Current Habits for Building New Ones

Create a list of your everyday routines and think about how you can connect your desired behaviors to these activities.

When choosing a positive habit to serve as your trigger, consider two key factors. First, ensure it occurs with high frequency—ideally every day or multiple times daily.

It should also be something that allows you to easily integrate your target behavior.

For my foam rolling routine, I require a foam roller and an unobstructed area of clean flooring. Clearly, this wouldn’t be practical if the triggering behavior occurs in a public setting or inside my vehicle.

Certainly! Here’s an additional instance to assist you in getting underway:

Should you aim to... run for half an hour daily?

Cues you could use:

• Time: Go jogging at 5pm, immediately after work
• Location: Change into jogging clothes when you step into the bathroom
• Previous Action: Lay out your jogging attire for tomorrow. following you put on your pajamas
• Emotion: Jog when you feel stressed

Good luck!

Should you require assistance in developing beneficial routines, my personalized coaching initiatives might be of great benefit! My approach consistently features “habit assignments” along with techniques designed to assist clientele in cultivating sustainable practices which support their objectives. Contact me to learn more!