Creating a New Habit Comes Down to Four Factors
By now, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about the habit loop. He tells us that a habit is formed from a signal, a routine, and a reward. But there is another factor that determines your success with a new habit: its simplicity.
In a 2013 study published in theJournal of Behavioral Medicine , researchers looked at what people need to stick to their exercise habits. In a summary, they reported that the following characteristics predict changes in habits over time:
- Sequence
- Environment
- Affective judgments
- Low complexity of behavior
The first three are definitely related to the habit loop : routine is essentially a sequence, and you also need environmental clues, and affective judgment is where the reward comes in. But the habit should also be simple, as the fitness site Brawn for Brains points out.
They further explain:
Let’s take a look at the most common pitfall. We all know someone who said this (usually after a few drinks):
“… And on Monday I’m going to start eating healthy and go to the gym every day, drink less and quit smoking …”
And by Wednesday they use their gym as a beer stand and order pizza. They didn’t fail because they were destined to be unhealthy, they just tried to change too much at once. Why does it usually end in failure? Well, if we look at the quote above, we see 4 difficult goals combined under one umbrella. Four goals are disguised as one, where failure of one intermediate goal means failure of all four … Suddenly failure seems inevitable.
This is why my New Year’s decision to “drink more water” stuck so easily, while my other decisions quickly failed. The rest were too overwhelming and difficult to behave – they took a lot of work!
Conclusion here? If you’re having trouble establishing a new habit, you want to implement the habit cycle, but you also want to make sure the habit is simple, at least at first. Start slowly and work your way up. If your usual goal is to read a book in a week, for example, you can start with a simpler task: read one paragraph before bed. It might seem like you’re getting it slower on paper, but you won’t get anywhere without sticking to this habit.
Check out the study and article below for more details.
Building Exercise Habits for New Gym Visitors | NCBI via Brawn for Brains