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Have you ever tried so hard to form a good habit such as exercising or drinking more water and somehow it just doesn’t stick? For today’s blog, I will be using some of the points from the book: Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood. Wendy Wood is a research psychologist who spent 30 years of her life studying habits.
There is a common misconception that habits can be formed if a person is motivated or has a strong intention to form new good habits. And that is simply not true. The initial motivation or strong intention may give some push to go out and run after a very long time, but that initial motivation is just not enough as time goes on. Feeling tired or even the warmth under the comfy blanket on a cold morning may end up becoming a good excuse to not continue with the morning run.
Normalizing the Challenge
Just because you missed a few days of not following through with your desired good habit does not make you a failure. It does not mean that you are not capable of forming new good habits. Don’t give up if you missed a few days of repeating the new soon-to-be habit. You could also look into whether you need to tweak the time, the location or the surroundings of where you are performing your new good habit. I will be sharing more about how you can tweak your surroundings with cues to form a new habit later in the blog.
So, What are Habits?
Per Wendy, a habit is formed when it bypasses conscious decision. For example, many of us are not going to be waking up every morning and deciding if we want to brush our teeth. Most of us are not going to be making a conscious decision as to whether brushing teeth is beneficial to our health or deciding on which tooth brush to use or how much toothpaste to put on the brush. Imagine, we had to make such decisions every morning? It is good that we already have many good habits in place so that we are not trying to make a conscious decision about every single action on a daily basis. For many of us, brushing our teeth is an existing good habit; it is automatic and does not require decision making.
So, how exactly do we get to a point of forming a good habit that feels so automatic, such as brushing our teeth? Wendy Wood states that creating a habit requires persistence and repetition. That is the key: persistence and repetition. Some habits may be easier to form, such as drinking 8 glasses of water everyday, as oppose to forming more complex habits, such as practicing and learning to play the drums. She also talks about the importance of creating a context around you that will minimize the friction of forming a good habit.
Minimizing Friction
Suppose you are trying to set a habit of drinking more water. If you have to walk all the way down the hall to get water, you are less likely to do it. Having to walk down the hall would require more effort and time, especially when you have back-to-back appointments or have to attend to your children. Having to get up, walk down the hall, and rush back to your next appointment are all examples of friction that could get in the way of drinking more water. But, thankfully you can tweak your surroundings in a way that reduces the friction. For example, if you keep a glass of water within arms reach, you are more likely to drink the water. When you are trying to set a good habit, you can think about the possible friction that may come up and how you could reduce the friction with more cues, such as seeing a glass of water nearby.
Friction is not all bad news. You can tweak your surroundings in a way that adds more friction to discontinue performing a bad habit that you want to break. For example, if you wish to break the bad habit of being on your phone way too much when you are with your loved ones, one way to add friction would be by placing the phone on silent mode and far from your reach. You could also temporarily remove the smart watch that is connected to all phone calls and text messages.
Creating Bigger and Louder Cues
As mentioned earlier, setting a glass of water within arms reach is a cue to drink more water. The “ding” on the cell phone is a cue to check the new text message. Seeing gym clothes and shoes laid out the night before could serve as a cue to go running in the morning. Seeing cut up fruits near your desk is a bigger and louder cue for you to eat the fruits than if the fruits were to be somewhere in the fridge. Wendy suggests the importance of creating such big and loud cues to help in forming good habits.
Stacking
One way of creating cues to form a new good habit is by stacking it on top of an existing habit. For the sake of this exercise I am going to choose 3 habits that many people do on a daily basis: brushing teeth, texting, setting an alarm. If you have an existing habit of brushing your teeth every morning, and you want to create a new habit of practicing gratitude, you can stack them on top of each other. For example, every time you brush your teeth you can follow it up with saying 5 things you are grateful for. That way, the existing habit of brushing your teeth will serve as a cue or reminder to say 5 things you are grateful for. If you wish to form a habit of stretching more, you could stack it on top of your existing habit of texting. So every time you text, you could stand up and do a quick stretch. If you wish to journal more frequently to reduce your stress, you could stack journaling on top of setting the alarm for the next morning. So, setting the alarm will serve as a cue to journal for 5 minutes each night.
In Conclusion: You can form a new good habit with persistence and repetition. Don’t give up if you missed a few days of not repeating the new soon-to-be habit. You could reduce the friction and add more cues to foster your efforts. You could also stack your desired habit on top of an existing habit to add more cues to form a new good habit, such as practicing gratitude, stretching, and journaling.
Just like there are good habits to foster your physical health, there are also good habits to foster your mental health. Good habits that foster mental health include exercising, journaling, practicing gratitude, using healthy communication skills and much more. Receiving mental health services include learning new skills that foster your mental health. Should you wish to learn more about my mental health services, you can reach me at sherin@catholictherapistcenter.com or at 562 267 9777 to schedule a free initial consultation.
Disclaimer: The content on this website is not medical advice or treatment. Please seek your physician with any questions related to your medical condition. The content and the resources provided on this website should not be used to substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified therapists.