How to build a new Habit quickly?
Here is your handy guide :)
Have you ever felt a dull start to the day because you missed your usual morning coffee or felt anxious because you didn’t clear your inbox yesterday?
These are trivial incidents, but such strong emotions are triggered because you broke a routine, a habit that you followed. Therefore, habits are hard to make or break.
Before going any further, what exactly is a habit?
According to psychology, a habit is just a thoughtless action done repetitively.
For example, the act of brushing your teeth. You may not really have any thoughts/feelings or emotions attached to it. You only enjoy the value derived from a habit.
According to Mel Robbins, the NYT Best Selling Author and one of the trusted experts on Behaviour and Mindset change in the world,
Bricks on the pathway to changing your life, that’s what habits are
Forming habits is equivalent to encoding your brain to do certain things under certain circumstances automatically.
Often, what stands between who you want to be and who you are now is YOU.So habits serve as a powerful tool to cultivate and exploit in order to achieve your objective, for both positive and negative results.
Once habituated to a particular thing/activity, you will automatically do it without the need for any motivation or feeling burdensome.
Isn’t this an awesome way to achieve your goals more easily?
That is the beauty of habits. It may take some time and effort to form a habit, but once cultivated, nothing like it.
It will help us accomplish anything effortlessly and effectively. For example, these three simple habits will help you to be more productive in the workplace.
Developing a habit — sounds easy, but not really right? I get you. So, let me give you a handy guide to building new habits quickly.
A Guide to Building New Habits
1. Why do you want to form this new habit? Set your goal
The intent and goal setting is the first step. Keeping everything in mind is fine, but if you feel writing it down on a piece of paper or on a digital document will be more effective to reflect on, go ahead!
For example, if you’ve decided to take a 5-minute walk in your office every 2 hours, your intention here is to improve your physical health and productivity. The goal is to walk at least four times during office hours.
2. How are you going to execute it? Create To-do list
Jot down a detailed To-Do list with a step-by-step breakdown of tasks to achieve your goal.
For example, you need to time your walking times and duration. Let us assume that your work hours begin at 9 AM. Then your first walk should be at around 11 AM. Next will be at 1 PM and so on.
Allow Flexibility but Not Excuses!
Be careful to stick to the new routine without excuses like “This time I forgot, so let me start afresh later.” OR “Let me start this from next week.”
While it’s practically true that we may not remember to follow the new To-Do list, set alarms, or use suitable Apps to remind us of the tasks. Try not to skip even once.
At the same time, since you’re trying something new, give some flexibility, like a change of plan based on what works better.
For example, walking four times a day may not be essential, so after your first day of practicing it, you may feel like cutting it down to two or altering the timings you decided initially.
If you can’t do the first walk, don’t leave the rest. At least finish the rest of the tasks if you can’t do the first one.
Take a determined decision and never back off, at least during the initial forming stages.
3. Check your To-Do List and reward yourself for accomplishments
Keep checking the boxes on your To-Do list every day. It will keep you motivated. After completing this at least seven days in a row, reward yourself.
It could be buying something for yourself or just as simple as posting a picture of all your checked To-do lists for the seven days! When you cheer yourselves for short runs, it will keep you motivated for the long marathon.
4. Consistency is the key
You just have to keep doing it on and on. But how long? There is no solid number to tell exactly how long you need to be consistent.
You must keep doing this until you don’t feel like a task or burden. Until you start doing it comfortably and effortlessly in the autopilot mode!
You will naturally reach a point when you do not need any motivation, a reminder, or an app to do this anymore. That’s the signal.
You may eventually get so habituated that you’ll feel like you’ve lost an arm if you do not stick to it.
But to give you an idea, an average person may take between 21 days to 2 months to cultivate a habit of medium complexity but it easily varies from person to person.
More tips to keep you motivated…
1. Seek for the Right Company
Having the company of the right people is important as it catalyzes the journey of building a new habit.
Therefore, let your immediate circle of people know about this habit-forming stage. They will help you stay on track and the fact that someone else is watching you will trigger you to be disciplined to accomplish your goals.
Alternatively, you could indulge anyone else along with you in this process. It will be more fun and having a companion/competitor will keep you motivated.
You can also try to approach people who are already into this habit. For example, if you want to walk in the morning every day, you can ask your friend who has already been doing this for years, to join you.
This way, keeping the people with the right energy around you, will help you adapt new habits seamlessly.
2. Visualization to train your subconscious mind
Often, we are making conscious efforts to train our subconscious mind to get into the habit of something. Only then will you start doing it automatically or unconsciously. You think nothing about it while doing it.
Hence, the more you visualize the easier it is for your subconscious mind to register.
Closing thoughts
Often we are amused seeing celebrities hitting the gym regularly even when they are not in the limelight. While we mistake it for their willpower to do something so hard consistently, it’s indeed their habit.
Women frequently talk to someone over the phone but still keep cooking. This multitasking ability is basically because cooking is a habit for them. They can do it almost blindfolded. So, they only focus on the phone conversation.
Habits get registered in the subconscious mind and hence people don’t do it out of will. They don’t think anything while or before doing it, as they are used to it. It automatically flows naturally.
Therefore creating constructive habits is a powerful tool to unlock great potential within us. It helps us multitask, accomplish complex goals with ease, and comfortably evolve into a better person.
Remember that you are a product of your habits. Thus, choose and inculcate them wisely.
