How to become a creature of habit
We spend a large part of the day on autopilot - and that's a good thing! Habits take the pressure off our brain and help us to channel our energy into more demanding tasks. They lend structure and stability to our everyday lives, giving us security and a feeling of safety. Ultimately, helpful habits can also help us to achieve important goals.
Once you have got into the habit of going for a daily walk, eating an apple every morning when you leave the house or spending 20 minutes over coffee reading a book that will help you develop professionally, you are already doing something almost imperceptible for your health and job satisfaction.
But how can we build up such habits and get rid of less useful ones?
How long do I have to hold out until I get used to something?
This is the first question I am often asked about this topic. There are lots of numbers floating around on the internet and in books: twenty-one days, sixty-six days and so on. However, the correct answer is: it depends!
On the one hand on the person, but above all on the characteristics of the habit. The quicker we get used to a new behaviour, the better:
- it is rewarded more often and more quickly
- it is easier to execute
- more often we are reminded
- less energy it requires
- the new habit is more strongly linked to an existing habit
A few months ago, we discovered mochi ice cream, a Japanese ice cream speciality that we all find very tasty, in an Asian shop. In the evening, I watch an episode of a series with the children - and it was no problem at all to link the new habit of «eating mochi ice cream» with this ritual. We didn't even have to think about it or make any effort. And it didn't take sixty-six days, but three or four.
Of good and bad habits
If we take a closer look, we often realise that habits that creep into our lives of their own accord meet the criteria listed above. Waking up in the morning and scrolling through our social media feed first thing is easy and requires almost no energy. We are reminded immediately if our mobile phone is next to the bed, and we are always rewarded with an interesting piece of information or a funny video.
Don't plan to go jogging if you hate it. Maybe you'd rather go hiking?
If we look at it from a distance, we realise that most of it is a waste of time and leaves us tired and empty - but even as we think this, the thing is flashing and our fingers are itching.
The nasty thing about habits is that many unhealthy and unpleasant automatisms are rewarded in the short term but have unpleasant consequences in the long term, while the opposite is true for many healthy and helpful ones. And unfortunately, our brain usually reacts much more strongly to the small, immediate dopamine boosts that Tiktok and Facebook, chocolate, TV series and so on trigger in us than to the long-term rewards that we can expect if we study for an exam early enough, exercise daily or save and invest money regularly.
4 tips on how to successfully change habits
Have you also failed a few times when building a new habit? Then you're in good company! It happens to all of us. In fact, the probability of success is relatively low. However, the following tips can drastically increase it.
1. get into the habit of a "master habit
Author and entrepreneur Stefan Merath is referring to the habit of thinking about your own automatisms in a certain way. And this is how you can do it:
- You choose one to a maximum of three habits that you would like to integrate into your everyday life.
- At a certain point in time - for example, over coffee in the morning - ask yourself to what extent you succeeded in demonstrating the new behaviour the day before.
If it did not work, do not take this as a failure, but merely as information in the sense of: It's not working yet. Now think briefly - this shouldn't take longer than three to five minutes - about what you could do to increase your chances of success. The following questions from research on habit formation will help you do this:
2. link the new habit to an existing one
It is easier for us to do something new if we form a kind of chain of different behaviours and, for example, always wash the dishes after dinner and go for a walk immediately afterwards instead of at some point during the day.
You can utilise a so-called if-then plan by linking a situation with an action: Whenever x, then I do y. For example: Whenever I get on the train, I immediately open the documents from my training programme.
3. do something that gives you pleasure
People who seem very disciplined and go jogging every day, for example, have a secret: they are often not that tough - they simply enjoy jogging or have got to this point relatively quickly because their body has not found it particularly difficult. Don't set out to go jogging if you hate it. Think about how you could achieve your overarching goal of «more exercise» with something you enjoy. Maybe you'd rather go hiking? Or combine the tedious with the pleasurable?
Fixed dates, a group of other people, a trainer: all this creates commitment and motivates people to keep at it.
For example, I've noticed that my mobility has decreased considerably. Now I do 15 minutes of stretching exercises in the evening. I find that extremely boring. That's why I always look for an exciting film, but I'm only allowed to watch it while I'm doing the exercises. To my shame, curiosity about what happens next in the film motivates me much more in the short term than the health aspects. I also find it easier to tidy up the kitchen if I have an interesting audio book to listen to while I'm doing it.
Joy also often arises when you visualise small advances and consciously focus on the benefits: For example, I don't feel like reading a specialised book every day. But afterwards I always feel inspired. By savouring these moments and storing them in your mind's eye, the habit becomes more attractive.
4. seek support
Fixed appointments, a group of other people, a trainer: all of this creates commitment and strengthens your motivation to stick with it. Find two or three other people who want to build a new habit and discuss once a week whether you are still on track.
