How to Form Good Habits
When helping clients develop positive habits, I often draw on the work of Wendy Wood, the author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. She is the Provost Professor of Psychology and Business at the University of Southern California. The book is based on both her personal research and the work of others.
According to Wood, 43% of our behaviors are determined by our habits. The basic structure of a habit formation is cue -> behavior -> reward. Something prompts us (a cue), we then take some form of action or inaction (the behavior), and some reward is tied to our action or lack of action.
In her book, Wood explains the three foundations of habit. Get these foundations right and those good habits go on autopilot. The purpose of this post is to help you do just that. After providing some basic information about habits, you will find a series of questions to help you prepare for the behavior change you want to make.
FOUNDATION #1: CONTEXT
Psychologist Kurt Lewis famously said that behavior is a function of people and their context/environment.
Two forces come into play here.
Driving forces are our desires that motivate us.
Restricting forces are the things that cause friction.
We want to work on a context that addresses both those forces. The biggest factor here is proximity. Proximity determines the factors to which we are exposed. Put simply: find ways to stay close to the good stuff you want in your life. In terms of the forces mentioned above, decrease restricting forces for positive behaviors, and make the new behavior as easy as possible.
For example, to stop mindlessly snacking on potato chips, move the chip bags to the back of your pantry. Then they won’t be the first thing you see when you want a snack. Better yet, put those apples you want to eat where they are easy to see and easy to reach for first.
As another example, make sure that the first thing that opens on your computer when you start it up is how you want to start your work day. Otherwise you may default to scrolling through emails or social media.
Ask yourself these questions:
How can you tap into driving forces to help you form this new habit?
How can you use restricting forces to help shape this new habit
How can you use proximity to make it easier to act on this new habit?
FOUNDATION #2: REPETITION
Repetition and reward go together, because “repeatedly rewarded actions restructure the way information is stored in our brain” (p. 102). Or as put by Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” (p. 112). So let’s start with the first half of that combination - repetition.
The Bad News
Wood says the common story that a new habit takes 21 days to form is a myth. Her research suggests it's more like two months and one week.
The Good News
While it may take longer than we thought to really cement a habit, the good news is that if we mess up during that period of time, not all is lost. She says, “Your habit in formation is not so fragile that it requires perfection. It requires persistence, repetition and context manipulation … If you fall off the wagon, don’t despair. Instead, use it as an opportunity to make your context tighter, stronger, and clearer. Your habit is still forming” (p. 102).
Ask yourself these questions:
How can you make sure to repeat this new behavior that you want to be a habit?
How can you keep track of those repetitions?
FOUNDATION #3: REWARD
Unless there is some reward (even a minor one) the habit will never stick on its own. These rewards need to be experienced right after the behavior in order to engage the brain’s feel good chemical of dopamine. For example, intrinsic rewards like how we feel after a great workout or a healthy meal follow right after those behaviors. When the positive reward was greater than what we were expecting, that also helps the habit stick.
Note - If we do something out of a sense of guilt or trying to please someone else, it probably won't stick.
Ask yourself these questions:
Take time to consider the intrinsic (built-in) rewards of the behavior you want to develop. What are they?
How can you make sure that the behaviors you want repeated get rewarded quickly?
HOW TO REALLY MAKE IT STICK: CONSISTENCY
Habits are about automatic behaviors, so if we have to think about something, we aren’t doing it out of habit. When context and cues change, we have to think about what we are doing. So keep context and cues consistent. That’s why people who exercise at the same time every day are more likely to make it a habit than those who don’t.
You can also use consistency to work for you when adding new habits to your routine. In this case, try stacking habits, where you tie new behaviors to an already established one. For example, try adding pushups to your daily routine of taking a shower. If showers are part of your daily routine already, you simply add doing 10 pushups before taking that shower. Once doing 10 pushups is automatic, you can add more pushups from there.
Ask yourself these questions:
What part of your context and cues can you keep consistent for your new behavior?
How might you tie this new behavior to an already existing one?
Listen to Wendy describe how habits work in her own words.