Habits often don’t show improvement or success for a while, but the moment they do, they show it in a very exaggerated way. This is one thing that really stuck with me after reading atomic habits, because a lot of the time when we dont see improvement immediately, humans as a species, will give up. Its really hard for us to continue to work for something when we can’t see the benefits of why were doing it. James Clear refers to the gym reference quite a bit throughout his book, becuase it fits in perfectly. How often have you wanted to workout, headed to the gym once, and not seen any improvement, then agreed that the gym wasn’t for you. That’s the perfect example of this mindset that if you dont look like a CrossFit champ after one deadlift, then your incapable of ever looking that way, this giving up mindset. I found this whole point extremely interesting and think about this quite a bit. This irrational fear of failure makes it impossible to be good at everything, and be successful, but I have to say that this book has taught me how to move around this fear, and in this blog post I will explain the most important pieces of this book.
The First Law: Make It Obvious
Cue
Have you ever walked into a dark room and wondered how to make it light? Probably not, because we have been exposed to electric lighting our whole lives, and a light switch lingers in the darkness somewhere, in every room. James Clear used this example to expose how habits become natural when we make them obvious. This Cue, or The First Law: Make It Obvious, sets up the rest of the habit ladder. Once it is obvious, you begin to crave the outcome, which is the second law, Craving. The third law encapsulates responding to this craving, Response. And lastly after one has responded to the craving, you are left with the 4th and final law, Make It Satisfying, or Reward. After I turn the lights on, I can see. I am left satisfied, and I will continue to do that in the future because I know that I prefer the light better then the dark. So that is how 1 scenario can show all the laws of a habit, and yet you do it so unthinkingly.
Now to create habits its much harder to make the cue a bait you would want to attack. Because you implementing this whole new system into your life. Say if you want to drink a glass of water every morning, implementing this habit is quite the hassle, but James Clear has thought about this.
IMPLEMENTATION INTENTION
An implementation intention is very effective in creating habits that are easier to reach. It helps to jumpstart your new habit and get it one its way to becoming an action that requires no thinking. This is an implementation intention.
I will (BEHAVIOUR) at (TIME) in (LOCATION).
Seems simple doesn’t it. Bring this back to the working out example above, this makes it impossible to go just once, because its a recurring thing. Ex, I will WORKOUT at 5:30 ON MONDAY’S in PARK GATE GYM.
This makes it very simple to keep up with my habit. I don’t have to be constantly thinking about when I will workout next, becuase I know on Monday’s I will head to the gym.
Say I’ve become the average gym woman now, and I religiously attend the gym, never skip a rep, and am starting to see results, and I stick with it, but I begin to realize that showering the morning after the gym isn’t really working for me, my hair is all wet at work and I never get the proper sleep needed after attending the gym, so I decide to shower after the gym. This is called HABIT STACKING.
After (CURRENT HABIT) I will (NEW HABIT).
So for my showering conundrum I can implement habit stacking and create a stack that looks like this. Ex, After I WORKOUT I will SHOWER. So simple but it saves you so much. All of these tips and tricks are only going to make the cue harder to resist, but what do you do after you’ve caught the bait?
Here is my habit stacker and implementation intention!
The Second Law: Make It Attractive
Craving
After you workout, or run, or dance the night away, you always feel like a super charged human being. Instead of feeling gross, and wiped, you feel like you could build a new planet in mars. You feel better then before you went out and did that form of exercise. But what is it that makes it that way? Dopamine. Surprisingly not a drug, but a natural (if your not prompting it by an outside drug) hormone release, that makes you feel great. Have you ever laughed so hard you’ve cried? Dopamine release. Sang your favourite song at full volume with your buddies? Dopamine release. Though I’ve painted this dopamine release as something that can only happen when your locked up with your friend listening to your favourite song and laughing, it actually happens many more times then you think. According to James Clear, every time we consider the craving for a habit, we experience a dopamine spike. Which is funny to think about, since you’d think that the reward would produce our spike, but bring this information back to the turning on the light habit. Have you ever felt charged after turning on the light? Not counting of you got electrocuted by them. Not really, but you were charged to turn on the lights, weren’t you? So you released your dopamine then, thinking about the lights on, not when they actually were on. So when you begin a new habit the craving has to be strong to be able to complete the rest of it, because once you envision the turnout your hooked.
Another thing to consider when thinking about beefing up your craving is temptation bundling. Which is just bundling something you need to do with something you want to do.
Ie: After (HABIT NEEDED) I will (HABIT WANTED).
I do this one quite a bit without realizing. For example writing this blog post is a habit that I needed to do, but I really wanted to go up the mountain today, so I told myself that after I completed this blog post I could go up the mountain. This turns the second habit, or the habit that is wanted into a form of a reward. So when I complete this blog post, catch me on the mountain, because I told myself I would be able to go when I finished the work. This habit is very effective if you have a lot going on, or a lot of work piling up. If you can make the work the guideway to something enjoyable, the work itself almost becomes enjoyable. You have to have a bit of self control to be able to accomplish this task though, because as easy as James Clear makes it sound, you have to be able to put something that is unenjoyable in front of something that is enjoyable, even though your the only person that is doing it. You have to hold yourself to it. But once you’ve got that under control then you can continue using the habit needed as a gateway to the habit wanted.
Another way to bundle habits is by bundling temptation bundling and, intention bundling, together. I call it the ultimate bundle, but it actually isn’t that crazy.
Ie: After (CURRENT HABIT) I will (HABIT NEEDED). After (HABIT I NEED) I will (HABIT I WANT).
This just makes functionality so much easier. You don’t feel the need to become distracted either, because you would be distracting yourself from the habit that you want to do.
Another way to make the craving easier to let into, is by surrounding yourself with people that project the qualities you want. We often rise or fall to the people in our surroundings. So if you fill your life with people that have habits that you want, you’ll have an easier time finding those same habits in yourself.
Now we have this craving, but we need to make it into a habit.
The Third Law: Make It Easy
Response
Humans are super lazy, its one of our major downfalls as a species. Take this climate emergency we have entered. We could find solutions to this problem, if we were willing to trash everything we’ve established so far, but here we remain in this climate emergency, because of our incapability of being solution based as a species. Now this applies to everything, including our habits. If our habit is established in an environment where its not supported it wont be very easy to sustain, and so will most likely collapse before breaking through the plateau of latent potential.
If you make your environment reflect your habit on the other hand, you will be much more likely to break through the plateau. Ex, returning to our example above about working out. If you wanted to workout in your room every morning, laying out your mat and some water with your clothes that are required for the habit would make the habit easier to complete.
Another way to make new habits stick better is to stick to the new habit rule. The 2 minute rule. This rule, according to James Clear, states that when you begin a new habit it must take only 2 minutes. I have a hard time with this one. If your only supposed to spend 2 minutes on it then it should be a smaller habit, but for larger habits that take a bit more time to cary out, I would stick to 1 hour, or 30 minute increments. I understand that 2 minutes would work for meditation, yoga, reading, writing, etc. But say you want to snowboard or wakeboard.I would feel turned off but spending so much time getting ready, and only spending 10mins on the mountain. So remember that some of these laws may not work for you, but all you have to do is tweak them a bit!
The 3rd law is Making Your Habit Easy, but this works the opposite for habits you want to get rid of. If you prime the environment against the habit that you don’t want, you’ll have an easier way of quitting that habit. Say you want to quit using screens around bed time. If you move your charger away from your bed you have to make the choice between your screen or a charged phone for the next day, which primes your environment against the bad habit.
To continue on a habit you must have a reward, so that brings us to our 4th and final law.
The Fourth Law: Make It Satisfying
Reward
As I was mentioning above about the temptation bundling, we were more likely to finish work when a habit we wanted to do followed the work. This is that same with this 4th law. To complete a habit you need to have something waiting at the end, and it has to be something good. When your completing habits and you are sticking to a schedule, always stick with it, and never miss twice. According to James Clear, missing twice s distils a feeling of carelessness about the habit, and makes it feel very unimportant, and easy to skip again. So sticking to a schedule makes it simple to be rewarded on a continual basis. Sometimes we have a hard time sticking to our word or our schedule, and informing someone of our endeavours into a new habit can always help. Last year I created a magazine about goals, one of the questions I asked every person was “Do you think that if you told people your goals it would be easier to stick to them?” And every single person said yes it would, but they still wouldn’t, because their to scared to fail in someone else’s eyes, and every single person I spoke to said the same thing. This same goal transfers to habits. Telling your new habit someone you trust and will be able to hold you to it is ideal. This way you don’t feel as if its only you doing this all by yourself, so less self control is needed.
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