How to create a habit: 5 steps to get there

Behind any motivation there must be a method. We explain it here.

Everyone has dreams that they would like to come true one day.. Learning a new language, getting in shape, finishing a career and more may be goals we want to achieve, but they will never materialize without good habits.

Habits are behaviors that are performed every day, automatically and effortlessly. If we form habits that are related to what we want to achieve, the process that will bring us closer to our dream becomes easier and easier, flowing by itself.

However, habits are not something that arise overnight. For this, it is necessary to be focused on achieving them, dedicating both physical and mental effort to them.

In this article we are going to talk about how habits are created, indicating a series of guidelines that can help in their achievement and, in addition, a series of aspects to take into account when deciding to introduce one of them in daily life.

The habit and its aspects to take into account

As we have already mentioned, habits are behaviors that are done automatically every day. When an action has become a daily occurrence, which is done every day, it becomes a habit and is done almost without thinking about it.. These types of patterns, once established, imply less energy consumption, both physically and mentally.

However, habits only become a part of people's daily lives after a process in which they have been successfully integrated into everyday life. Trying to make something new become our daily bread is something that certainly implies greater concentration, being aware of what you are doing and how you are doing it, as well as not losing the objective for which you are doing it.

It is very comfortable to fantasize about achieving a long-cherished dream. What is not so comfortable is having to work hard every day on the activities that are related to the goal you want to achieve, whether they require mental or physical resources.

It must be taken into account that the process of habit formation is not something concrete and fixed, that is to say, not all habits are established with the same ease, nor do they take the same amount of time to become an everyday occurrence. This process can vary depending on several aspects:

The starting point at which the person is.

• Physical and intellectual abilities
• Personality traits
• Lifestyle
• Other established habits that may interfere with the habit to be incorporated.

In addition, the speed with which the habit becomes established depends both on the objective and on the difficulty of the habit itself to incorporate. For example, it is not the same to try to achieve a half-hour walk every day as it is to try to lift weights for half an hour every day. The physical and mental effort is much greater in the second case and the desire to do it may be less.

It has become quite famous the statement that it only takes about 21 days, or in other words, 3 weeks, to introduce a habit in people's daily life. This statement, besides being very risky, has been shown to be clearly false for those habits that are more complex.

Several studies have tried to see how long it takes to acquire a habit, obtaining very varied results, depending on the difficulty of what was to be achieved. Research shows that some habits can take very little time to acquire, just 18 days, while others take almost a year to become an everyday occurrence. It has also been found that failing one or two days does not have a negative impact on habit acquisition, but failing more than two does.

How to create a habit: steps to follow

However, once the habit has been successfully introduced into the person's daily life, the physical and intellectual effort that was necessary to invest at the beginning of the process becomes much less.

1. Set specific goals

It is quite possible that you have many goals that you want to achieve.. However, as the popular saying goes, he who grasps too much, grasps too little.

Ideally, try to introduce only one habit at first, at most two, and hope to achieve it after a while.

If the habit becomes established, you can try to increase the level of complexity. For example, if you wanted to walk half an hour a day, now you can try to make it an hour or even spend part of that time running.

It is very important that the habits to be followed are defined very concretely. It is not the same to say that you are going to walk for half an hour every day after eating as it is to tell yourself that you are going to walk.

In the second case, it is more likely to fall into self-deception, telling oneself that the fact of having moved around the house already counts as walking, or that, as one has already done the errands that had to be done, one could say that one has exercised.

2. Define a plan and stop making excuses.

Whenever you try to introduce a new habit into your life, the constant struggle against laziness and the return to the previous routine arises..

It is common to say to oneself that one does not have enough time, that one does not have the right material, that one has other obligations, etc.

The worst enemy to achieve a dream is not obligations or lack of time. The worst enemy is oneself.

To put an end to these excuses, the best thing to do is to identify them and prepare in advance everything to avoid them.

Are there other obligations to do? Then you have to do them first. Don't have the necessary material? Surely there is some at home or, if not, we can buy it and that's it.

Dreams will not come true by themselves, you have to work hard to achieve them.

3. Schedule reminders

It doesn't make much sense to be aware that you are going to follow a new habit if later, in practice, you forget that you had to do it.

Thanks to technological advances, cell phones, in addition to being devices for watching kitten videos, have multiple functions, including the ability to set personalized alarms, with a text message reminding you what to do and when.Among them is the ability to set personalized alarms, with a text message reminding you what to do and when.

In addition, another option, a little more analogical, is to leave notes in strategic places in the house, such as the bathroom mirror, the refrigerator door or the TV screen where the things that have to be done are written down.

Following this strategy, the excuse that you have forgotten what you had to do is no longer valid.

4. Monitor progress

From time to time, it is convenient to see how the progress is going.

It is very important to check whether progress has been made, and the best way to do this is to write down in a notebook or on your cell phone the days on which you have and have not complied with the habit to be performed.

If it has been the case that there has been a day in which you have not done what you had to do, it is very important to write down the reason for it.

In this way, not only will you know how often you are doing the habit and to what degree you are achieving your objective, but you will also be able to detect possible obstacles that may have arisen during the process.

5. Celebrate what has been achieved

In the same way that it is very important to see to what extent you are achieving what you set out to do, it is also very important to celebrate it.

Even if you have failed one day or another, it is possible to celebrate at the end of the week or month what you have achieved, allowing yourself some respite or treats.

However, the rewards should be consistent and should also be very timely.

It would not make much sense to celebrate having gone a whole week without eating industrial pastries by cramming a whole cake between your chest and back at the weekend.

There is also no point in celebrating not having smoked today by lighting up a cigarette the next morning.

Bibliographical references:

• Duhigg, Charles (2014). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.
• Graybie, A. M. and Smith, K. S. (2014). Psychobiology of habits. Research and Science, 455, 16-21.
• Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. Potts, H. and Wardle, J. (2009) How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009.