Building Habits: How to be more Consistent

Habits

Habits essentially put your mind into autopilot which takes out the effort and decision behind the behaviour. Less thinking about doing it and more chance of actually doing it.

Like most animals, humans operate in patterns according to certain conditions and triggers.

45% of all our behaviours are habits.

Automating Desired behaviours

You wake up at 7am, head for the kitchen, get breakfast, shower and brush your teeth. It requires no thought, no real effort. You just do it, everyday.

Imagine if our desirable behaviours were this easy and consistent? Well, it turns out they can be - we need to create habits.

Avoiding immediate Costs

If we can initiate certain behaviours with specific triggers, then the action becomes automatised, with less attention paid to short-term immediate costs.

Let’s take being productive as an example. The long-term benefits of being productive such as improved income, career prospects and recognition can often be outweighed by more prevalent, short-term costs such as difficulty focussing, cognitive strain and avoiding the easy option. As humans, we are attuned to cognitive ease and if you have low self-control, then you’re in trouble.

The Habit Process

In its simplest form a habit can be broken down into 3 parts:

Trigger –> Behaviour –> Reinforcement

So how can we start to develop the skill of consistency and establish positive Habits?

Manipulate the triggers of the desired behaviour and reinforce it.

The 5 triggers of Habits

There are 5 different triggers for habits.

1. Time – We eat, sleep and work at set times. Humans are habitual and desired behaviours should take place at a set time.

2. Location – Habits are often a response to the environment around us. We mentally assign habits to a particular location - we sleep in bed, work at our desk, watch TV on the sofa.

3. Preceding event – Habits trigger other habits. For example, you get home from work, go to the kitchen for a snack and sit down to watch TV. Habit stacking can trigger a cascade of habits from one simple action. For example, if you’re stressed, you could break an old habit by meditating rather than venting. Bad habits out, healthy habits in from manipulating the preceding event.

4. Emotional states – Your emotions predict your actions. For example, you eat when you’re sad, go quiet when you’re stressed and become moody when you’re tired. Becoming aware of your emotional-behavioural responses allows you to intercept before the behaviour is initiated. Feeling down? Switch up eating with exercise. Both release the feel-good hormone serotonin, however, they have slightly different health-related outcomes.

5. Other people – Your friends and the people you surround yourself with matter. If your friend becomes obese, your risk of becoming obese increases by 57%. If you want to be a high performer, surround yourself with other high performers.

Example: I will meditate (habit) at 8am (time) at the park (place) with my friend Joe (people) after I have breakfast (preceding event), especially if I’m tired (emotion).

Remember: The more triggers you incorporate, the stronger your habit becomes. Choose specific, actionable cues that trigger positive behaviours.

Download: Our Habits cheat sheet so you can start living like a high performer.

Habits in the Brain

As behaviours turn to habits, they activate different regions of the brain even though the resulting behaviour stays the same. Greater activation is shown in the basal ganglia which is associated with stimulus driven behaviour (triggers), with less activation in the decision-making regions such as the pre-frontal cortex. Less thought, more action.

Nike’s ‘just do it’ motto comes to mind.

Research shows it takes an average of 66 days to build a habit, so stick with your behaviour long enough to automate it.

Your mind is like a muscle - put in the mental reps of your desired behaviour so it becomes your default response.

“We first make our habits, then our habits make us” - John Dryden