I want to eat healthier foods; I want to exercise more; I want to keep my space clean and organized; I want to study for 2 hours a day. Well, we want a lot, but actually achieving everything we want is a totally different story.
Up until now, we have provided many different ways for you to work on yourself, but there has been one constant, which revolves around building habits. Developing routines is crucial for moving forward, yet it is something most of us struggle with. That is nothing to be ashamed of. The habits we form to improve mean change, as this is necessary to move forward, so they’re pulling us out of our comfort zone.
So, today we’ll talk about the very basics: How do I form a habit or routine?
Your Step-by-Step Guide to Forming a Habit or Routine
Forming a habit is not easy, but when you decide to do so, you dedicate yourself to improving. You’ll see that through each step, there are also different important character traits being developed while forming a habit.
I. Start: Dream big! Yes! But don’t start big.
When you give in to impatience, you’ll only set yourself up for failure and disappointment. In the end, forming a habit is not something you do to get quick results — it’s about a long-term change in one’s lifestyle, intended to deliver lasting results. So, be sure you truly want to live by your habit.
Break down your objective into manageable pieces; this way, you’ll avoid feeling overwhelmed. For example, let’s say you plan on doing sports more regularly. Instead of a 1-hour workout every day, maybe start with just 5 minutes.
You might not see results very quickly with five minutes a day, but consistently increasing your daily movement will be what it takes to form a habit. You need a stable base to work on.
Accomplishing your daily goal will lead to positive reinforcement and therefore keep your motivation up.
II. One Habit at a Time: We’re not learning to juggle here.
Just as with starting small, take your time and don’t try to build multiple habits at once. Don’t be impatient and try to just “get them done.” Again, forming a routine is a lifestyle change.
Each habit is hard work. Why would you put multiple sources of hard and draining work upon yourself? You’ll only feel exhausted and overwhelmed and end up not incorporating a single one.
Train your focus and perseverance. Stop trying to reach a goal with split motivation or energy; instead, fully commit to what you’re doing, to the habit you chose for the time being.
III. Use a Trigger: But a good one.
When trying to form a new habit, one of the main obstacles can be actually remembering to accomplish it daily. We’ve all had that moment: you’re lying in bed, not expecting anything bad, and boom — there you go, remembering that you forgot to perform your routine.
To prevent that, it is useful to connect your routine to a daily event, like brushing your teeth or finishing breakfast. This helps remind you to perform the habit regularly. You’ll be more mindful and train your organizational skills.
If you’re someone who doesn’t have this problem, well, there is still another helpful aspect hidden in this step. When linking a habit to a daily event, preferably one you perform at a regular time in your daily rhythm, you’ll automatically attend to the routine at a regular time as well.
How is this helpful? Well, the answer to that leads to our next step.
IV. Consistency: This is where it gets tricky.
Consistency is the aspect essential to developing a routine, yet this is where many people fail. Whether due to lack of time, distractions, or simply a loss of motivation, there are many reasons for failing in consistency.
When talking about being consistent, we are talking about determination, about self-discipline, about willpower — all traits which will be useful in every aspect of life.
Practice a new routine at a specific time of day or in the same environment each time. But don’t make your habit dependent on something and leave out a day if you’ve missed the time or place; provide a certain level of consistency in order to strengthen your new lifestyle over time.
If you want to read something about willpower, you might enjoy our article about it. To read click here: “How to Develop Willpower.” In case you don’t know how to stay motivated, check out our post about motivation here: “Motivational Boards.”
V. Plan for Obstacles: Your time to be pessimistic.
Expect setbacks; while this might sound harsh at first, setbacks and even failure are inevitable, natural aspects of our lives. Identifying potential problems in advance will give you the opportunity to think of solutions.
Obstacles could take various forms; you could lack energy one day, time the next, your gym clothes aren’t washed, or you forgot to buy something healthy to eat, and the stores are closed.
Coming up with solutions for problems like the above will enhance your problem-solving skills, an ability that is very useful in everyday life. But, it’s not always that easy.
If you nonetheless get into a situation in which you can’t perform your habit, don’t stress yourself. Be gentle and acknowledge that this is not your fault; identify the problem and prepare for the next time. This will build resilience.
At the same time, there is a possibility for impactful unexpected events to occur, such as illness. Give yourself the time you need and prioritize accordingly. Building a habit or routine is about empowering yourself, not developing stress.
VI. Track Your Progress: Just preparation for the last step.
Keeping a list, a board, a log, or whatever else you want for tracking will visually show your progress. Checking a little box on a piece of paper can sometimes just be the right kick of dopamine we need to keep going.
Especially when working on a habit, you’re doing (nearly) the same thing every day, which can get boring. It might have been exciting at first, but after some time, it doesn’t feel like achieving anything. That’s why it’s important to visualize success.
Remember streaks on Snapchat? If you’ve never used Snapchat, in its essence, it is an app on which you can send and receive pictures to and from friends. You develop a streak with a friend when the two of you snap each day, showing as a little flame beside the friend’s name. What does this have to do with keeping track?
Well, I remember how addicted everyone was to keeping up their streak, me included. If you look at it from a different perspective, we were all just very dedicated to keeping track of our sending snaps habit.
If you develop a kind of streak connected to your routine, well, trust me, it’ll bother you to miss a day.
VII. Rewards: We arrived at the fun part 🙂
The other way to use your tracking system is for rewards, and who doesn’t love rewards? Of course, you can reward yourself without a tracking system, but including a gift at a specific point in your journey and visualizing this destination in your tracking plan will help your motivation as well.
But, even if rewards are a great thing (undeniably), they do tend to have a dual character.
Some might start to forbid themselves any treat unconnected to accomplishing a goal. Others might use unchallenging achievements as an excuse to reward themselves.
That’s why we want you to be cautious with rewards. Stay mindful and practice self-awareness to identify negative or harmful behavior.
Hopefully, you now have an idea of how to start building a habit and look more confidently into the future of improving yourself.