Have you ever wondered why you cannot stick to the habits longer?
What repels us from forming good habits?
why does the whole process of forming habits seem so boring and daunting?
why you cannot follow a good routine whereas incorporating a bad habit is so easy.
In order to find the answer to all these questions, you first need to understand what are habits and how these are formed.
let’s dive in.
What are habits
when we do something repeatedly in our daily routine, the behaviours that emerge from those actions are perceived as habits.
Habits have an autopilot nature. we are unconscious of them most of the time.
Everything we do on a daily basis is habits, from waking, and eating to bedtime all add up as habits.
But how habits are formed
well, the first thing that is needed to form a habit is the cue. Cue is essential for forming any habit. It triggers us to take some action.
Consider yourself in the gym, the rousing pep talk of the coach, the music in the background, and the physique you admire all push you to lift weights. These all act as a cue that triggers you to work your ass off in the gym.
Every cue brings an action that you perform to achieve any goal.
Every cue makes us start a certain behaviour. Like in the above example(in the gym) the cue starts a behaviour.
Lifting weight is a behaviour that becomes a habit in the end.
Next comes the craving. Consider a smoker, he is driven by the satisfaction and the relief after the smoking. That’s what pushes him to smoke more. if you are binge-watching Netflix, you love to be entertained by it. so you are craving the pleasure that comes after watching shows. The entertainment is craving.
Then comes the reward. Reward is often the end result of the struggle you are doing. Probably the outcome we receive. whatever we are doing is for the reward what makes a habit.
The whole process can be summed up as
Cue>action>reward
Role of intrinsic motivation and environment
I have remained quite successful in my past years. The reason often lies is not in my doing but all credit goes to the impeccable framework that I have incorporated in my daily routine. If you go a little over 3 to 4 years back, you will see me struggling to follow a schedule that breeds fruitful outcomes. I often either have a habit of putting tasks off or just swirling in a laziness loop. For me, it was tough to break that cycle.
My laziness lifestyle brought a massive influx of bad habits which revolved around eating an unhealthy diet, binge-watching Netflix, doom scrolling, waking too late and going to bed sleep-deprived. The same pattern starts on the next day. Lacked motivation to give anything a headstart.
In those years, I set relentless goals but left with a hollow feeling throughout that pursuit. I could not get things done. Life became dull, lethargic, and uninspired. I cannot manage to accomplish even half of the goals that I set my target on. What I was doing is…
The Flawed approach I have fallen prey to
My whole life I have been driven by money, prizes and some rewards. That’s what has sparked the fire inside of me throughout the whole time. That’s why I wonder why the hell I feel burnt out and exhausted at the end of the day. Why did I quit halfway even before embarking on the journey?
why I did not achieve the goals that I set my target on?
The answer to this question is simple I was driven by external motivation. The rewards, accolades, and money all tempt me to strive for a goal but as soon as I reach midway I quit.
why going to the gym has been so difficult for me?
It’s because I am primed with extrinsic motivation.
The first day you head to the gym with full enthusiasm, on the second day you feel a little motivated and then the day comes when you finally give up. By the last day, the motivation has disappeared. The reason behind quitting is you were driven by the reward of getting fit. There was no intrinsic motivation. Rather than enjoying the work you feel overwhelmed by the rewards and those rewards do not breed long-term, durable motivation.
Instead, what should you do?
Instead, choose the environment chock full of cues to build good habits.
Atomic Habits author James Clear is a strong proponent of the role of cues in building good habits.
As I head over to the gym for the first time, the environment instantly sends shivers down my spine. The music in the background, and the rousing pep talk from the coach all act as a cue to spark the fire inside of me to take action.
Every cue triggers me to lift weights.
Frictionless effort
As James Clear put it “Choose the frictionless environment to start a good habit”.
Before understanding a less friction environment. You need to understand what is a high-friction environment.
A high-friction environment is something that involves a tremendous amount of effort.
Consider you want to listen to music. What you have to do is first you have to pull out your phone open an app to sift through the music and then hit play.
well, it is a long process which involves multiple actions. Now what if you use your voice to activate some music such as using Siri or some voice-activated feature on your device.
The latter one involves no effort and it’s much easier and involves quite less friction.
The central idea here is that do not choose an environment where doing the right thing is almost impossible.
Final Thoughts
Creating a habit and sticking to it should not be hard.
If you choose the best frameworks and strategies, it will be much simpler to stick to the habit.
Just remember, it all comes down to the environment.
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