Effortless and Automatic: The Promise of Habit

Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash

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Whether you are working in the kitchen, the yard, or the workshop, using the right tool for the job makes all the difference. Have you ever tried to "wing it" on some task rather than stop and get the right tool only to find yourself spending way more time and effort to get a way worse result? In hindsight it seems obvious, "Get a hammer, Einstein. Don't try to drive that nail with the back end of a screwdriver," but somehow it's easy to lose track of the obvious right answer along the way.

The same is true when the "task" you're working on is a healthy lifestyle change, like starting to exercise regularly or to significantly improve your diet. Making a big change and sticking with it is really hard. If you try to wing it, there's a good chance you'll struggle and fail. Ever start a diet or exercise program only to quit after the initial momentum faded? It's tough, isn't it? 

Use the right tool to significantly increase your odds of having your big change endure over the long term. The right tool for this job? Habit. Once something becomes a habit, you'll do it nearly automatically, with very little thought or effort.

Our brains are lazy, always looking for the easiest ways to do things in order to conserve energy. Habit is the brain's own tool for making things easier to do. Once your brain creates a habitual routine around something, the routine moves from the part of the brain where conscious, intentional thought happens to a much older part where it can be retrieved easily and automatically. Scientific experiments measuring brain activity show that the brain works significantly less hard to perform a task once it has become a habit.

Your brain will turn anything it can into a habit. It happens all the time. One study estimated that over 40% of our actions are actually the result of habits rather than conscious thought. Think of things you do every day: getting ready for work, making yourself coffee, driving to work and home again, booting up your computer, etc. Most of those things are probably habitual.

But you probably didn't create those habits on purpose. Your brain did it on its own. Habit will be a much more useful tool if you can choose which things to use it on. Luckily, you can create habits on purpose. There's no magic to habit formation and the principles are pretty simple, though applying them successfully can take a bit of trial and error. Like any tool, you need to learn how habit works in order to use it properly.

Here are a few of the basic concepts:

• A habit is made up of three pieces that together are called a "habit loop". The cue or trigger tells your brain it's time to kick off the habit; the action is the thing you actually do; and the reward is some measure of joy or satisfaction that tells your brain the routine is worth remembering for next time.
• To start a new habit or change an existing one, be sure to focus on the cue and reward at least as much as the action.
• Perform a habit loop consistently for long enough and a habit will form. How long it will take will vary; just keep at it. Consistency is the name of the game. 
• In order to stay consistent while you wait for your habit to kick in, keep in mind that you'll only do things that you remember to do and that your motivation to do exceeds the effort required. So look for ways to remind yourself to do your thing, to stay motivated, and to make your thing easier.

If you want to learn more about habits, including how to start or change them, then I recommend you check out two blogs and two books.

• jamesclear.com by James Clear is a treasure trove of information about habits and behavioral science. He’s got a wonderfully clear and concise writing style as well. My claim that the length of time required to start a new habit will vary is based on James Clear’s blog post How Long Does it Actually Take to Form a New Habit? (Backed by Science)

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• Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, PhD. Dr. Fogg is a professor at Stanford University and runs their Persuasive Technology Lab. His Tiny Habits program is a simple, free program that allows people to try his behavior change methodology for themselves. BJ's Fogg Behavior Model is the foundation for how I think about how to use reminders, motivators, and "ways to make things easy" to support consistency.

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• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Pulitzer prize award winning journalist Charles Duhigg. With The Power of Habit Duhigg has probably done more than any other to get the word out about the huge advancements made in recent years in our understanding of how habits work and how to start and change them. I drew from it several times in this article:
  • Habits live in an older part of the brain than conscious thought…p. 13
  • Habitualized actions are easier for the brain to perform…p. 15
  • Habit is the brain's tool for making things easier to do…p. 17
  • Over 40% of a person's daily actions are done via habit…p. xvi
  • The concept of the habit loop and the importance of focusing on the cue and reward to start or change a habit…p. 19

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• Smoothie a Day the Easy Way: A Handbook for Starting a Lifelong Daily Healthy Smoothie Habit is a 64 page ebook that gives a step by step plan for using these same principles of habit formation to accomplish the specific goal of creating a daily healthy smoothie habit. For a shorter, free version, join my Guided Smoothie Tour email series. Everyone who joins the Tour gets a 14 page summary of Smoothie a Day that includes the full habit plan and a 100 Days of Smoothies wall chart to get you started and track your progress. Just let me know which email address to use and I'll get you started.

​Have an awesome day.
​- Shaun