The Simple Decisions That Can Make or Break Your Habits

The fascinating fact about making habits stick! | On What I Read

We all want to have good control of our habits. Everyone who’s obese wants to go to the gym daily. Many of those who smoke want to quit. Many want to write daily. These are a vast variety of habits that we can’t control. Yet, when it comes to making these actions into habits. Not many see some success.

Why is this happening? We’re doing something wrong. The faster we realise that the faster we can change. So, here’s the million-dollar question: What are we doing wrong? That’s what we discuss in these few articles.

Why is the response important?

The answer is multi-faceted. But let’s go through what we know till now. We know that there are four stages in a habit. The cue that triggers a desire. The craving or the desire to experience something. The response is the action we take to do something. The Reward is experiencing something.

Now, we’ve already discussed about the cue or the craving previously. But there’s a high chance that your habit might still not stick. Why? Well, the time taken by the cue or the dopamine the craving hits lasts too short. This small amount is not enough for you to realise that something is kicking in, let alone giving feedback.

What you do and how you do it determines how you feel about a habit. The better you feel about the response, the easier the action seems.

How do you find a good way to respond? Aren’t all habits different?

Getting things in a flow

Despite all the habits being different, and all humans are different, a few things are common in everyone. That’s why there are a few tricks that can work for everyone.

The answer to how we find a good way is simple. Get things in a flow. Start with the simplest part of the response and make it a habit. If your habit is to go for a run every day, then you should first start by wearing your running shoes and going out of the house.

It doesn’t matter if you run every day. The action of wearing the running shoes primes you into running. The easier part is to keep writing, and the harder part is sitting down to write. For any habit, it’s easier to do it once it’s started, but the hardest part is also the easiest: starting something.

Test it if you want. If your habit is to read daily, then read one page a day, and you’d inherently have the desire to keep reading after a few days. These tiny, decisive actions are the ones that you want to turn into a habit. The rest is just part of the flow.

Getting things out of flow

But it would be best to remember that the tasks with the easiest triggers are bad habits. It is easier to order a pizza than make a sandwich because of all the functionalities technology has provided. It is easier to watch another episode, as Netflix automatically shows you the next one. It’s even easier to get entertained by opening TikTok or Instagram reels, which provide short-form content instead of long-form content like movies or YouTube videos.

So, what can we do to not fall into this rabbit hole? Well, it’s the opposite of what we had done for the good habits. We need to make the decisive moment as hard as possible. I have installed the two-factor authenticator app only on my iPad. And I keep my iPad in the remotest places possible (in my home). So, whenever I want to log in to Netflix or any other entertainment app, I must look for my iPad.

This might be a simple step, but you can’t imagine how many times I skipped opening the app because of this. Try it out yourself and share your findings!

That’s everything I wanted to share today! I hope you found value in what I shared. Habits are a beautiful tool once we plan to use it correctly. I have been having fun with them for the last few weeks and plan to play with them more. What new habit are you going to work towards today? Please share with us in the comments!

Thanks for staying till the end! Until Next time! ✌️

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