How To Build Good Habits That Stick

How to build good habits – Tips and ideas

Do your habits make your life easier or harder? Do they help you or hinder you? How easily can you break your bad ones to make way for new, healthier ones? Your lifestyle is the sum of all your habits, good, bad, and ugly.

In this article, we will share actionable advice to help you change your life through better habits. You will learn how to build good habits that last.

Building Good Habits – Overview

In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear makes an indisputable case for focusing on systems rather than goals. Depending on your generation, the title could create a mental picture of habits as huge, life-changing bombs. On the contrary, Clear argues that incremental actions, at the atomic level, can compound. As the saying goes: a slow drip of water can bore a hole in any type of rock.

Think about that drip. The first water drop seems so insignificant, as does the fifth. But after thousands of them, you may begin to notice a dent (geologists, please don’t take this literally). At some point, one drop finally breaks through to the other side of the rock, creating the aforementioned hole.

Does that one drop deserve all the credit? Certainly not! Similarly, a single execution of a new behavior cannot create lasting change on its own. Instead, your commitment to forming and sticking with a new, good habit brings positive change. Conversely, consistently practicing a bad habit can bring about your demise.

A collection of those good habits will go a long way in reshaping your world. It can change how others perceive you and improve your outcomes. They can also help you use your time better and attract new people into your sphere of influence.

Habits – The Rhythm of Our Lives

Building good habits is important for normalizing best practices across your life. On top of that, habits also put structure into your days. The routines you institute, good or bad, all contribute to the rhythm of your life.

Consider healthy morning routine habits. Perhaps you pick out and prepare your clothes the night before. You wake up early and read 10-20 pages of a personal development book. In this case, three habits connect to form a structured routine that gives you a sense of control over your life. In fact, they positively affect the rest of your day.

Picking out clothes the night before gives you time to handle an unforeseen incident. Waking up early gives you a chance to accomplish more. Reading prepares you for great conversations with potential business associates.

Speaking of unforeseen incidents, there is another side to the good habit coin. Although such structural habits are generally good, they mustn’t be too rigid, according to an article on HoustonMethodist.org.

In this article, psychologist Dr. William Orne writes that you need “the capacity to effectively adapt your behaviors to what life is currently bringing to you”. His example involved occasionally breaking a healthy eating habit to socialize with friends, another healthy behavior.

Balancing structure and flexibility is key to maintaining good mental health. Without the flexibility, you can more readily succumb to overwhelm. In fact, some habits, even positive ones, can become your master if you are too inflexible.

That said, you are probably wondering how to start forming healthier habits. Below are actionable tips for building good habits.

How To Build Good Habits – Tips

My 8-year-old son recently formed the habit of picking his nose and then putting his finger in his mouth. He did this whether he had found anything or not. Apologies for choosing a rather graphic example here.

On closer examination, I learned he simply intended to clean his fingertip after the dig. Nevertheless, to the outside observer, my boy eats boogers. Well, it is often said that all it takes to form a habit is repetition. 21 is usually the magic number. Based on that, he had to do 21 pick-and-licks to form the habit. 

Another theory is that people, particularly children, pick up habits through observation. Although that is plausible indeed, I must assert that my son certainly didn’t pick this one up from me (no pun intended)! I never lick. I flick.

These theories explain unintentional habit formation well. Unfortunately, they’re not so helpful for creating new, better habits. The repetition method probably works, but the first or 21st occurrence is what presents a challenge.

The third or fifth repetition can make or break your good intentions. If the new habit is too difficult or unpleasant, you may never get to the triumphant twenty-first time.

Clear’s breakdown of habits into four laws offers the chance to systematize habit formation. The steps go from cue to craving to response to reward. A new, good habit can be like a nice meal: Someone can fix you a plate, but no one can force you to eat.

To build a good habit, break the four stages down so you can make them more appetizing.

The cue must be obvious and compelling. Something must enter your consciousness through your senses. Seeing, hearing, or feeling something can cue you. Perhaps it’s an aroma; sometimes it’s a flavor. A strong enough cue will bring you to the next stage. 

It takes a rather attractive craving to propel a person. A problem crying out for an urgent solution or an irresistible urge can do the trick. The response needs to be as easy as possible. Finally, the reward must be highly satisfying. 

Let’s look at my son:

Cue – He feels something in his nostrils that he cannot ignore.

Craving – He is overwhelmed by an urge to get the thing out of his nostrils. 

Response – He goes in and gets it out.

Reward – He can now more closely examine (and taste) what he found.

If you can engineer your new habit this way, then you can get enough repetitions to lock it in. You’ll breeze past the proverbial 21 days, and your new habit will fall into a rhythm.

Reading tip: There are many ways to build good habits. Explore our guides to stop subvocalization, fix bad reading habits or build a memory palace. Alternatively, browse our lists of the best speed reading courses or language learning apps.

Breaking Bad Habits – Tips

A similar, opposite engineering process can help you break bad habits. Maybe you want to break the habit of checking your phone every minute or every time it signals. Let’s break that down. 

Cue – Notifications, vibrations, and sounds give smartphone cues their power. Simply silencing the phone robs them of a chance to create the craving. 

Craving – Without the cue, the craving loses its power because nothing prompts you to pick up the phone. 

Response – But what if you just keep checking the phone even without the cue? Perhaps there’s a less obvious but just as compelling cue that works even without the bells and whistles. To make it harder, you could set a complicated password or pattern lock.

Also, turn off notifications on your lock screen so you have to go through the security barrier to see what’s going on. You could even turn off some notifications so you have to open an app to see messages. These are all ways to rob the response of its ease.

Reward – Clear’s framework calls for making the reward less satisfying. Nevertheless, you may feel a new satisfaction from regaining control over your life. In this case, you have subjected your device to your will.

Minimizing or eliminating the cue altogether can take care of the rest of the process. Nevertheless, be thorough. Some habits, however, cannot be completely eliminated.

In such cases, if you can disempower the craving, response, and reward, you can break the habit. Further, I don’t think you need twenty-one occasions for your habit to break once you’ve taken all the fun out of it! 

Making Habits Stick – Tips

Some say it takes much longer than twenty-one days for a new habit to stick. In fact, how long it takes depends on the habit you want to form, your personality, and other factors around you.

For example, if you want to build a gym habit but your work schedule changes every week, the response stage will be challenging.

A Psychology Today article suggests having an accountability partner. You’re more likely to keep a good habit when someone else checks in on you. They also suggest celebrating micro-goals along the way to keep yourself motivated. Be patient with yourself and don’t rush, they advise. There is no perfect way to change.

Additional Tips for Building Good Habits

• Forget twenty-one; commit to one month of daily practice to build momentum.
• Identify your Why. Often, it helps to have a strong outside source of motivation – a loved one who needs the version of you the good habit will create. If it’s just for you, make sure your why is important enough to get you through the early stages.
• Visualize yourself doing the new habit or living with its benefits. 
• Set up reminders and triggers.
• Replace anything you may be giving up in your old habit with something better to make the reward stage of your new good habit feel like a bigger win.

How To Build Good Habits – Conclusion

Wrapping up our guide on how to build good habits. Creating good habits takes time, motivation, and commitment. It is a deliberate act that can pay off big time as new, more positive habits reshape your life. There are no shortcuts; you will need systems that work.

Support groups, mentors, and accountability partners can make a profound difference. Outside sources of motivation can also be strong catalysts for change. All that said, it’s ultimately up to you to set yourself up for success.

Reading and researching how to break bad habits and build new ones is a good way to prepare your mind for positive change. As you form your new habits, keep your mind open to adjusting to different environments.

It’s okay to break a healthy habit occasionally to help someone in need or take a nice departure from your daily routine. Forgive your failures, celebrate your gains, and play the long game.

FAQs: How to Build Good Habits Easily?

1. How to build good habits: How long does it take?

There is no fixed number of days for how to build good habits. A widely cited UCL study found that people took a median of 66 days for a new daily behavior to become automatic, although some habits formed in 18 days and others took up to 254 days. Simple actions, such as drinking water after waking up, usually become automatic faster than demanding routines like daily exercise or studying. Focus on repeating the behavior in the same context rather than counting down to day 21 or day 66.

2. How to build good habits when you keep quitting?

If you keep quitting, start with a version of the habit that is almost too easy to fail. Instead of committing to 30 minutes of reading, commit to reading one page. Or, instead of promising a full gym workout, commit to putting on your workout clothes. Then attach the new action to something you already do. For example, say, “After I brush my teeth, I will read one page.” This approach, called habit stacking, helps you build the routine before you increase the difficulty.

3. How to build good habits without relying on motivation?

Motivation is unreliable, so make your environment do more of the work. Leave your book on your pillow, keep your running shoes by the door, or open your study app before you check social media. Make the habit obvious, easy, and rewarding. A simple habit tracker can help because it makes your progress visible, but it should feel like encouragement rather than another source of pressure.

4. What are the four laws for how to build good habits?

James Clear’s Atomic Habits gives a useful framework for how to build good habits. Make the habit obvious by creating a clear cue. Make it attractive by pairing it with something you enjoy. Make it easy by reducing friction. Make it satisfying by rewarding yourself immediately after you finish. For example, put a book where you will see it, read after a pleasant existing routine, start with one page, and mark the habit as complete on a tracker.

5. How to build good habits that stick long term?

To build good habits that last, choose one meaningful behavior and repeat it until it becomes part of your normal routine. Avoid trying to change everything at once. Anchor the habit to something you already do, track it simply, and have a backup plan for busy days. If you miss a day, return to the habit the next day. One missed day is not a failure. The real problem begins when a single miss turns into a long break.

What are your tips for how to build good habits and make them stick? Please email us your tips, and we will add them to this guide.

Sources + Reading

1. How Are Habits Formed: Modeling Habit Formation in the Real World – European Journal of Social Psychology
2. How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones –James Clear
3. Time to Form a Habit: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Health Behavior Habit Formation –PMC
4. Making Health Habitual: The Psychology of ‘Habit-Formation’ and General Practice –PMC
5. Expert Meeting on Healthy Habits: Habit Formation and Habit Change –National Institute on Aging
6. Harnessing the Power of Habits –American Psychological Association
7. Habit Formation – Psychology Today
   

Words: Rashida Veronique S.