Trying to beat bad habits is a bad habit, but it shows us how to succeed
EACH year, nearly 50 percent of us vow to change our behaviour come the new year, resolving to lose weight – a third of us vow to slim down – be better organised or fall in love.
Odds are, we won’t succeed. Just 8 percent of us achieve our New Year’s resolutions. A quarter give up after the first week.
Many New Year pledges involve trying to establish new habits or conquer bad ones. There’s a lot of misinformation about how habits are formed and how they can be changed.
Here are some of the most common myths.
1. A lack of willpower is to blame for our bad habits.
A third of Americans say they lack the self-control they need to accomplish their goals.
In truth, though, many of our behaviours are not guided by self-control. Half the tasks we perform daily are things we do without thinking.
Studies show that people with high levels of self-control aren’t constantly battling temptation – they’re simply relying on good habits to exercise, make the kids’ lunch or pay the bills on time without thinking about it much.
In this way, high self-control is an illusion as it consists of a bedrock of habitual patterns.
2. Apps can help change our behaviour.
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Apps like Fitbit, MyFitnessPal and BookLover promise to help us change our habits by tracking our good (or bad) behaviour. Some websites say they work, and run lists like “17 bad habits you can kick using nothing but a smartphone”, or “Mobile apps that can help you kick your bad habits”.
But most apps simply monitor what you’re doing. As one group of scientists noted: “The gap between recording information and changing behaviour is substantial… (There is) little evidence… that (apps) are bridging that gap.”
In my research, I’ve found that certain types of planning and monitoring get in the way of creating new habits, perhaps because they focus our attention on things that are irrelevant to behaviour change. Some people may like these devices – but until there’s broader evidence of effectiveness, I recommend that most people don’t bother with them.
3. It takes 21 days to form a new habit.
This idea stems from a popular 1960s book by Maxwell Maltz, and it’s often repeated today. Self-help books promise that you can fix your marriage, jump-start your exercise routine or cure your money woes in just three weeks.
In truth, there’s no magic number when it comes to establishing habits. They are created slowly as people repeat behaviours in a stable context.
Some simple health behaviours, such as drinking a glass of water before each meal, had to be repeated for only 18 days before people did them without thinking, one study found.
Other behaviours, such as exercise, needed closer to a year of repetition. Researchers found that it took on average 66 days for a new habit to form.
For most people, more important than repeating an action for a certain number of days is establishing a routine. Doing something at the same location or time of day can help outsource control of an action.
In a study of regular exercisers, for example, almost 90 percent had a location or time that cued their desire to exercise. For them, exercising was more automatic and required less thought and willpower.
4. The best way to change a habit is to set realistic goals.
In my lab, we recently conducted a study with people who wanted to change some behaviour. When asked whether they would prefer a self-help book about goal-setting or one about environmental change, they overwhelmingly chose the book on goal-setting.
This is a mistake. Modifying our environment lets us remake our behaviour without overreliance on willpower.
Unwanted habits can be disrupted by changing the cues that activate them. For example, people eat less unhealthy food if they put lids on sweet bowls and if stores place un- healthy snacks at the back of displays.
Altering your surroundings can also set up cues to promote desired behaviours. For example, people who weigh less keep fruit on their kitchen counters. Children who don’t have televisions in their bedrooms have lower BMIs than children who do.
A study of returning Vietnam War veterans showed just how important environment could be. Twenty percent were actively addicted to heroin while they were serving overseas. But only 5 percent relapsed after they retur ned home. Researchers concluded that this low rate was due to their dramatic change in environment: in the US, the triggering cues were all but absent.
5. Learning about the benefits of new habits helps change our behaviour.
This common misconception for ms the basis for a plethora of public health efforts. For example, the US government’s “Fruits and veggies, more matters” campaign has tried to educate people about the benefits of eating greens. It hasn’t worked. Since its inception in 2007, fruit and vegetable consumption has gone down.
That’s no surprise. Research has repeatedly shown that changing knowledge and intentions does not translate into changes in habits. Habits are formed through doing. And the long-term memory systems involved in habit formation don’t with new resolutions.
In our research, we’ve found that old habit associations endure, and hinder behaviour change, even after people adopt new intentions. With habits we learn not by learning, but by doing. – The Washington Post
Wood is a professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California