GOOD HABITS 101
Six simple ways to develop feel-good practices
Creating new habits isn’t easy. Of the 41 percent of Americans who make New Year’s resolutions, only 9 percent feel they are successful at keeping them. It’s not willpower either; a 2020 study found that self-control has little effect on habit formation. What does matter: doing something that makes you feel successful when you do it, so you’re motivated to do it again and again. “It’s the emotion you feel that creates habit,” says BJ Fogg, Ph.D., author of
Tiny Habits and founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University. Whether you want to create a habit of going to bed earlier, exercising more frequently or even responding more calmly when you’re frustrated, here’s where to begin.
1. FIGURE OUT WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO YOU “Use your values to guide your habit,” says Alice Boyes, Ph.D., author of Stress-Free Productivity. Losing weight, for example, is not a value, it’s an outcome. If you want to exercise more, what values are you reflecting? Maybe "caring" is key and you want to be ground a long time to care for your kids or grandkids. "find the value behind the habit you want, "Boyes says.
2. MAKE IT SMALL "The key is to set the bar low and keep it low; if you do more, you count it as extra cresit, "says Fogg. You set yourself up to feel successful because you’re overachieving. You may decide to create a new habot of doing two push ups before every meal; as time goes on you may do four pushups before as meal, or 10 because your ability increases and your motivation increases because you notice how strong you feel.
3. ESTABLISH A PROMPT Train yourself to adopt a new behavior by choosing a cue— putting your gym bag by the front door before you go to bed, laying out a piece of floww next to your toothbrush, doing two jumping jacks after you turn on the coffee maker in the morning 4. CELEBRATE YOUR SUCCESS EVERY TIME
Saying you’ll reward yourself with a fancy set of workout clothes after going to the gym for a month won’t get you out of bed every morning. What will: the feeling of success you get when you give yourself a small reward, whether that's a bite of chocolate or high-five
5. DON’T BE RIGID If you focus only on maintain-ing a steak-say, going to the gym every day for 60days - you may feel it's not worth continuing if you break that streak.
“Extreme rigidity of habit is not generally associated with mental health,” Boyes says. Stay connected to the original reason you developed a new habit, like staying healthy to be a better parent or partner.
6. CREATE HABITS TO REGULATE YOUR EMOTIONS
“A lot of the really important habits—how we relate to other people, the strength of our long-term relationships—are based on how we respond to internal triggers,” says Boyes. Fogg has created a habit of saying to himself, “Everybody is doing the best they can; nobody tries to screw up,” whenever he’s frustrated by someone taking too long at the checkout counter or failing to move when a traffic light turns green. “It’s made me more compassionate,” he says.