Building habits
Read time: 9 minutes
It is 19:00.
I am staying in the hallway staring at my running shoes.
“You promised you would run more often” I remind myself.
In that cold hallway, after a long day of work I find myself trying to self-motivate to put on those shoes and run.
And yet I can’t.
After every reminder of how I will feel at the end of a 10-kilometer run, I also think about how much easier it would be to just spend that time watching Netflix, or chilling without a purpose.
The struggle is ongoing and before I even realize it, tormenting over whether I should go out that door and run has cost me over 2 hours.
“Champions don’t do extraordinary things.
They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.” ― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
What is a habit
Think of all the things you need conscious control over in order to do them well (e.g.: Writing, problem solving, learning a new skill, etc.)
Now think of all the automated things you do in a day (e.g.: Washing your hands, driving, texting, etc.)
A habit is the automation of an action you were once struggling with.
It is a way for your brain to use less power.
Whenever you take an action, your brain fires electricity between the neurons needed to undertake that action.
The more you do that same action; the more electricity passes through those neurons.
The more those neuron connections are activated, the more you will grow a shell around that neuron passageway.
That shell called myelin will enable you to lose less electricity when firing those neurons and it helps the electricity go faster.
So, the 10.000.000 time you go to tie your shoelaces, you no longer need to consciously think about how to do it.
Your body activates those sets of neurons that correspond to that particular action and automation takes over.
Thus, a habit is born.
I guess ‘muscle memory’ doesn’t make that much sense anymore, but it still sounds better than ‘neuron passageways extra used’.
“Change might not be fast, and it isn't always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped.” ― Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Good and bad habits
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
For your brain there is no such thing as a good or bad habit.
There are just habits.
Your brain runs on electricity and chemicals.
When you eat sweets, they release dopamine which in turn tells your brain “hey, I like that we must do that again”.
The same way I explained in [this blog post], the principle of Pavlov’s dogs applies very well.
Me sees 1 slice of cake, me wants cake, me eats all cake, me fat because I finished 6 months’ worth of sweets.
Aristotle very well said ‘we are what we repeatedly do…’.
If I eat cake today, I will want to eat cake again.
The next time I will see cake, I will be reminded of the sweet taste of eat and I will want cake.
Once you get the process started, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But how do we get this process started?
How to develop habits
Take any big goal that is important to you.
For the sake of example, I will talk about developing a habit of running 5 days a week.
We have enough of a challenge, yet it's not unbearably hard to accomplish.
To oversimplify the process, there are 3 very important elements to keep in mind:
1. Trigger
Under what very low effort circumstances do you do a habit?
We are lazy beings.
We are designed to preserve energy.
In order to fight against this fact, it is best to have a trigger that is too hard NOT to do (e.g. Putting your running shoes on).
What will happen when you get yourself to put on those shoes is your brain will go ‘hell, that was easy, but I want to chill…
yet…
I have the shoes on. I might as well run 100 meters.’
2. Environment
Ever noticed how after a few months, you don’t even need to look at your phone to open those social media apps?
The layout of our spaces designs our habits.
By this logic, designing our spaces designs our habits.
Our objective is to automate the process of getting ourselves to run.
Having the shoes somewhere nicely tucked in a wardrobe under 200 other shoes is not useful.
Having the shoes next to the TV remote won’t be a happy decision.
3. Reward
We’ve got so far, so most likely we’ve managed to make ourselves run.
Now comes the fun part.
Just as with Pavlov’s dogs, we are habitual beings.
In order to keep doing something, we should reward awardees, vice versa for not wanting to do something.
The only thing to keep in mind is that your rewards should align with what your habit works towards.
If you’re running in order to finish a marathon, it doesn’t really make sense to reward yourself with 3 apple pies.
It’s up to you how you choose to reward yourself:
Playing a video game, you love, playing that amazing soundtrack you love, preparing yourself your favorite type of coffee.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
Yet… What do we do if we fail with our habits?
How to keep habits
In my own experience, it doesn’t really help to beat myself for not doing something.
You obviously want to keep a streak of habits going for as long as you can, but we’re all human.
There will be situations when it simply won’t be viable to balance a habit and a given event.
The important thing is not to forget what is important for us.
If we set out to run a marathon and still have a social and work life, then we should design our habits around that.
Instead of finding yourself every morning without enough time to run properly because you woke up too late, your choosing not to run because it’s Friday night and you have to go out for that birthday, focus on how to work around your already existing life.
Now, there’s obviously things we simply can’t work around.
Someone’s death, a childbirth, or a full day of travel is something that will happen from time to time.
That’s when we must remember we are only human.
It is normal to skip a day or two.
We shouldn’t forget we have standards, but we should cut ourselves a reasonable amount of slack.
When doing well with a habit, there’s no reason to not take a day off from time to time, or just skip a workout if it doesn’t go completely against your goals.
“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
DISCLAIMER: Most of the ideas addressed in this blog post come from the books quoted.