“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but habit.”
— Will Durant
Habits have no sense of fairness.
That’s why building great habits (of the sort that incrementally help us improve at this crazy thing called life) is really friggin’ hard.
And, because the universe loves adding salt to injury, it turns out that building bad habits (of the sort that incrementally help us suck just a bit more at this crazy thing called life) is really friggin’ easy!
This is the plight of every well-intentioned human being across the planet.
Take that as consolation if you are the type who enjoys being part of the majority.
For those who don’t wish to settle for a participation award, worry not, for just because this is where the majority of us reside does not mean this is where we are destined to stay.
You can improve. You can develop great habits. You can accomplish any and all the things you set your mind to.
But first, before we dive into how, let’s quick chat about why building great habits is so darn hard. (Trust me, this part is important.)
The Struggle is Real
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”
— Warren Buffet
Excellent habits are of the sort that add value to your life. This might be the habit of daily exercise, or that of consistently eating healthy.
It might also be the habit of not procrastinating. Or of living graciously. Or of being aware and supportive of the people around you.
Excellent habits manifest themselves in myriad ways, but the common thread they all share is that their consistent implementation is difficult.
But why should this be the case?
If excellent habits are, by definition, good for us, shouldn’t these be things that our brain developed through millennia of evolution?
That’d be nice, but unfortunately our brain’s developed with something other than our life-satisfaction in mind… it developed to be lazy and short-sighted.
Your brain is a greedy little hobbit. It gobbles up the vast majority of calories passing through your body on a daily basis.
Never forget, thinking ain’t easy.
For proof of this, look no further than the memory of how you felt after a multi-hour standardized test.
Hours of thinking takes a toll on the body. It leaves you lethargic, groggy, and a bit spacey.
This is what happens when your brain runs at full capacity for too long.
Now, there’s a lot of stimuli, and a lot of thoughts, your brain could attend to at any given moment. If you’re brain decided to fully-focus on every passing whim, you’d have very little cognitive bandwidth left over if, say, a tiger sprang out of the weeds.
Okay, chances are tiger’s don’t rank high in the list of existential threats you’re likely to face on a daily basis anymore, but the problem is, your brain doesn’t know that.
It’s a primitive piece of hardware trying to run some fancy new software, ie: The ModernMan (21st Century Edition).
This piece of software is buggy as all get out. Doubly so when running on some outdated hardware.
But this is where we find ourselves.
So the thing we’ve got to understand about our thinking-noodle is that it values two things to the exclusion of most others:
- Patterns
- Short Term Gratification
Our brains are excellent pattern recognition machines. It’s this ability that lets us zone out while captaining a deadly piece of machinery through time and space on our daily commute.
With patterns, our brains can minimize the cognitive bandwidth any particular task requires.
Seriously, consider how little thought you put into making your morning coffee. The act is routine, the motions forgettable.
It’s this tendency to live our lives in a zombie-state of habit that leads the gurus to say things like: Live in the moment.
We’re really bad at living in the moment.
Except when it comes to gratification.
Then we’re pretty damn good.
That is, when given the choice between receiving a reward right now versus sometime in the foreseeable future, our brain will inevitably choose the right now option.
Again, this is because our animal brains developed in a world of scarcity.
It made no sense to plan for a future that may or may not come.
Tomorrow’s gratification never arrives if you get eaten by a tiger today.
So, the takeaway here is, try really hard not to get eaten by tigers.
Well, again, given today’s modern world, that really shouldn’t be all that difficult.
Not getting eaten by a tiger is setting the proverbial bar fairly low where goals are concerned.
The salient point here is: bad habits tend to be the ones that prioritize instant gratification.
I want this ice cream, therefore I shall consume all of it despite the fact that I am supposedly trying to lose 20 pounds.
I am stressed and want this cigarette, therefore I shall smoke it despite the fact that the cancer it might cause will be far more stress inducing.
When given the choice between an easy, instant gratification, or a difficult, delayed reward, the brain will almost always choose the former.
Stop Giving Your Brain What It Wants
Building excellent habits is not easy, but it’s relatively simple.
At their core, every habit follows the same pattern:
First there is a Trigger, which leads to a Routine, and finally ends with a Reward.
TRIGGER HAPPY
There are only 5 classifications of Trigger, which makes identifying them somewhat easy (which is step one to building excellent habits).
- Location
- Time
- Emotional State
- Other People
- The Preceding Action
Location-based triggers occur when a particular environment elicits a habit. An alcoholic returning to a bar, for instance. These types of triggers can be easy to avoid: Simply don’t go there.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Especially when the Location is linked to a place you can’t avoid… like work!
Time-Based triggers occur around a consistent time of day. Perhaps in the hour following lunch you go through an energy dip which leads to a loss in productivity as your brain goes into a vegetative state and nibbles on an unhealthy stream of YouTube videos.
Emotional State-Based triggers are closely linked with our emotional state of mind. If you reach for a cigarette or start chewing your fingers at the first sign of stress or anxiety, then you are falling prey to an emotional state trigger.
Other People-Based triggers fire when we are in proximity to a specific person or group of persons. Getting shellacked every time you hang out with your college buddies is a sign of an other people-based trigger.
The Preceding Action-Based triggers are possibly the hardest one to nail down because, as the name would suggest, it’s a constantly shifting target. This could be something like pounding a plate of cookies upon arriving home at the conclusion of your daily commute to alleviate stress and frustration.
ROUTINE WASTELAND
The Routine part of the habit cycle is what immediately follows the Trigger.
It is the solution.
Bad habits are inevitably poor solutions.
While talking about Triggers, we discussed many negative Routines (smoking, drinking, binge eating). But here’s perhaps the most important part of this article:
To build excellent habits, you must learn to control the Routine, not theTrigger.
That’s right… studies show that people who try to control for the Triggerinevitably fail to build the desired habit.
Again, the most effective way to build excellent habits is to control the Routine, not the Trigger.
That’s not to say you should ignore the Trigger.
On the contrary, it’s vital to understand your Triggers, because only by understanding why your going into a particular habit loop can you hope to change what you do while in that hamster wheel.
REWARD YOURSELF
We execute habits for a particular Reward. In the instance of smoking, that might be to reduce stress.
When building excellent habits, the goal isn’t to replace or even modify the Reward. In fact, you can’t. It’s what the mind craves.
And the mind will eventually get what it wants. Don’t even try fighting that battle.
All you can really do is modify the path you take to achieve that Reward.
Smoking is a bad way to alleviate stress. Exercise is much better.
Both Routines will deliver the desired Reward, but one is infinitely better for you long term.
When we talk about the habit loop (Trigger/Routine/Reward), it’s vital you understand that the only part of the equation you can really control is the Routine. This is where all your energies should be focused.
FOCUS UP: HERE’S THE 3 PART PROCEDURE TO BUILDING EXCELLENT HABITS
“Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy, but the worst habit you could possibly have.”
– Dale Carnegie
We’ve spent a disproportionate amount of this article talking nuts and bolts of habit formation. Now it’s time to put what you’ve learned about your lazy brain’s reliance on Triggers, Routines, and Rewards to work for you.
So finally, here’s how to build excellent habits.
- Identify Triggers
- Identify Old Habit
- Define New Habit
Notice how only 1 of these steps deals with the Trigger and absolutely none of them talk about the Reward?
That’s right, 2/3 of building an excellent habit is in identifying what you usually do upon activating a Trigger, and then articulating what you are instead going to do in the future.
Here’s the simple script:
WHEN THIS HAPPENS… (trigger)
INSTEAD OF… (past routine)
I WILL… (new routine)
It’s really that simple.
For instance, you might say: When I get frustrated in traffic, instead of yelling at the other cars, I will pump some music and sing as loud as I can.
Or, you might say: When I get stressed, instead of reaching for a cigarette, I will take a time-out and meditate for 10 minutes.
EXCELLENT HABITS ARE THE KEY TO AN EXCELLENT LIFE
“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
– Jim Ryun
You now know everything you need to start building excellent habits.
Remember, we’ve simplified some very complex concepts here, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
In trying to build any new habit, you will inevitably fail.
Plan for this. Be patient and forgiving, then dust yourself off and get back on the horse.
Whatever you do, don’t give up.
That’s one habit you can’t afford to build.
