New Learning About Forming Habits

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post here about the subject of habits, after having read a book about it. I found it interesting. What compelled me to blog about habits again? I think it’s synchronicity. In a webinar I attended in November, the instructor recommended a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. I had never heard of it. In December, I saw on a TV news show that Atomic Habits was among the top 5 non-fiction books on the New York Times best seller list. Hmmm… In January, I saw that Dana-Farber announced a class on Atomic Habits. That tied it; I heard about this book three times in as many months. I interpreted these relative coincidences as a sign to read the book and revisit the subject of habits for this blog.

I’ve been interested in the subject of habits for a few years. I read a book called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg. It prompted me in 2017 to write the blog post here called: Does It Really Take 21 Days to Form a Habit?.

In searching for my old blog post, I was happy to be reminded that I’m not alone among fellow bloggers in being interested in habits. Others have written about habits before in this blog. Sandie wrote A New Take on Old Habits in 2013, and Meagan wrote Changing Habits in 2014. I felt I was in good company.

Atomic Habits builds on Charles Duhigg’s book in that James Clear agrees with Duhigg’s model for how habits are formed either deliberately or unconsciously. But Clear provides more practical guidance on how to develop positive habits and reduce or eliminate negative ones.

One of his recommendations on forming a new habit is to be specific on how you will put the new habit into practice. Rather than expressing the general intention: “I will start exercising this week.”, be more specific: “I will exercise every workday at 5pm for 30 minutes.” Alternatively, you could “stack” your new habit onto an existing one: “I will do 10 push-ups after I make my bed every morning.” He also suggests starting small; start by doing something simple that only takes two minutes but will likely lead to the next steps and the intended new habit once you’ve established some momentum. For example, instead of intending to walk 20 minutes a day after work, which could be daunting at first, commit to putting on your walking shoes and stretching when you get home from work. Once you’ve done that, it will be easier to just start the walk.

I liked his suggestions like that for starting a new habit and improving the chances of sticking to it. The book also prompted me to think about some of my ongoing challenges in working remotely. When I used to come into the office every day, I took the commuter rail and generally stuck to the same schedule each day. I would leave the office at the same time each day and would go home and either exercise or do personal errands or chores. When I was at home I was in the at-home mindset. The book reinforced for me that when I work remotely and sit at my desk at home, I am in the work mindset and I do not impose on myself some sort of cue to shift into an at-home mindset at 4pm or 5pm. So since I don’t do that I tend to continue working later than I used to at the office. Atomic Habits suggests that I need a daily reminder in my schedule to stop work and go exercise. I think I always knew that, but I did not impose on myself a control mechanism to make sure it happened. That realization was helpful.

I learned another new thing in this book. The last blog post I wrote about habits was in part to explore the question – how long does it take to establish a new habit? The popular theory was that it took 21-days. Atomic Habits says establishing a new habit does not depend on a certain number of days of doing the new activity.  The determining factor is the number of repetitions of the new activity that are needed before it becomes part of your routine, easy and/or automatic. The number of repetitions also depends on the skills of the person and the nature of the activity. For example, those of us who learned to drive a car went through this process. At first, when we learned to drive, we had to consciously focus on each of the sub-steps in doing driving tasks like making a left turn, passing another car on the highway, or slowing to a stop at an intersection. Today, we do each of these driving activities without having to think about the sub-steps; they’ve become mostly automatic. We also learned at different rates depending on how easily each of us took to driving when we first started. For some it may have taken 50 repetitions to get comfortable, for others 100.

Similarly, I have never been successful in making exercise into a lifelong habit. I just don’t like it enough. I’ve been successful at doing many weeks of exercise in a row for a specific purpose, like getting in shape to play a sport, or for the summertime, or preparing for a vacation. But after that goal passed, I generally took a break from exercise and then had to struggle to get back into shape for the next purpose. By contrast, a friend since childhood has successfully established exercise as a lifelong habit. He said it is because he feels good when he exercises, he likes the way he feels afterwards, and he absolutely hates the struggle of getting back into shape in the rare periods when he has let down his guard and gotten out of shape. Avoiding that negative compels him to maintain the good habits.

After reading the book Atomic Habits, I better appreciate the value of making a good habit relatively easy to incorporate into your life, finding a way to make the activity as enjoyable as possible, and making the results improve your life in a way you value.

Ok I think I understand the process better; time to set my end-of-day reminder in Outlook.

How have you approached establishing a new habit?