Forming and Changing Habits
How many times have you told yourself that you wanted to start a new habit or change an existing habit of yours? Habits play a central role in our daily lives and are utilized in order to save our brains from processing time and power. Often, we find that our “autopilot”, or habitual tendency, mode kicks in and that it doesn’t really align well with our core values. This is the genesis for habit formation or change, but how exactly does this process work?
In order to build a brand new habit in our lives, let’s take a deep dive into the following three prongs essential for habit formation:
Instigative force
As alluded to earlier, there is an automatic mindset mode we enter when we decide to partake in a particular habit. In forming a new habit, there needs to be some sort of motivational trigger that springs you into action as I’ll touch on in the second point. This driving force will have to come in some form of tying back to your personal value system in order to have a high probability of reinforcing the habit for the long haul.
Routine action
Now the real habit itself begins. Our mind and body like to think and work in terms of structures and patterns. Prior to this point, we were given the nudge towards the habit, but now we need to sustain that force. Finding some sort of routine or series of actions that follow suit will help fortify the structure of creating your new habit.
Reward factor
Finally, the key determinant, in my opinion, to sticking to a new habit is the reward stimulus that follows the routine action. We as human beings respond most adeptly to feedback loops, and this is no different when it comes to building new habits. Habits take time to develop, and a reward factor provides the lasting impact in encoding such habit’s behavior into your brain.
Having gone through the three-part process, the natural question remains:
How long does it take to form a habit?
While I can’t give you a concrete answer to that, studies indicate that it can take anywhere from one to two months to fully ingrain a habit into your behavior. Having said that, the variability in the time it takes to establish a habit comes down to how automated your mind and body become in relation to the routine. The primary purpose of building a habit is so that your brain has less and less work to do in making decisions. In doing so, your mind can take advantage of this freed up space by devoting its mental activity elsewhere.
The great, paradoxical power in the emergence of a new habit is that your brain will stop participating in the decision making process. What happens when you want to change a habit? Unless you fight your current, existing habit, your brain will continue to go into autopilot mode and carry out the original habit for years on end. Let’s see how to fend off an old habit in place for a new one.
Changing Habits
Changing habits is not as difficult as it may seem. Look back at the three steps discussed earlier to initially form a new habit. If you look closely, you’ll notice that you’ll likely only need to focus on swapping out the routine action step. The cue and reward can stay in place as the boundaries around which you change your old habit for a new one.
Another way to facilitate changing a habit is by switching up your environment. Studies have shown that your mind goes into autopilot mode and will perform the same habit the same way every single time you’re in the same environment. By changing your environment, you’ll trick your brain into switching back on as it has to make some new decisions to adapt to the new environment. Here is where you can aim to “rewire” your mind around the routine structure and begin to change your old habits.
The fact that habits do not magically disappear is the beautiful curse of human existence. Habits remain with us forever due to how they’re encoded and structured into our brains; imagine how terrifying it would be to start driving again after not having driven for over a month. Thank goodness for habits making that task easier!
Having said that, that unfortunately means for us that our brain will have a hard time discerning between good habits and bad habits, so if you have a bad habit, it will always creep up on you given the right cues and rewards to trigger it. It’s therefore our responsibility to pin down our bad habits and aim to do our best to change them for a better life. Finding the right cues and rewards that align with your personal values is an everlasting quest that is beautiful to journey through on the road to your self-discovery process through the lens of habits.
Habits play an integral part in our livelihoods. Imagine how your days would go if all the habits seemingly went out of the window and you had to basically hit the reset button. For some, that proposition is quite enticing. For others, such as myself, it would pose an anxious situation to say the least. Regardless, habits ease the mind’s workload and make our daily decision making processes that much easier, and we all know how much we love to make things easier.
Whether you’re looking to implement a new habit or change an old one, I’m sure you can use the three prong approach to habit formation to succeed. As much as you have to focus on the three prong approach, it should also be noted that in order to maintain habits for years and decades on end, it will serve you best to self-assess your personal value system prior to taking on the three prong approach. Luckily for you, I have a little something here to help you out with that self-assessment process. All the best forming and/or changing your habits!
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” - Jim Rohn
