Building and Breaking Habits

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Building habits

To build positive habits, consider the following steps in designing them:


Make it obvious – make the “cue” for your habit something you can’t miss
• Use an implementation intention – I will [behaviour] at [time] in [location].
e.g. I will populate my journal at 8am each day at my desk.
• Use habit stacking – After [current habit], I will [new habit].
e.g. After arriving to work in the morning, I will check my tasks and events in my journal.
• Design your environment to make the cue of that habit visible.

Make it attractive – make completing the habit more enjoyable


• Use temptation bundling by pairing an action you want to do with an action you need to do.
• Join a culture where doing the habit regularly is the normal behavior.
e.g. a journaling group like the JashiiCorrin Community.
• Create a “motivation ritual” by doing something you enjoy immediately before your habit.

Make it easy – eliminate barriers to completing your habit


• Design your environment to make doing your habit easy.
e.g. setting up your desk or workspace so that all your materials are readily available.
• Reduce friction by decreasing the number of steps between you and your habit.
e.g. leave your journal open.
• Prepare your environment to make future habit-doing easier.
e.g. leave your desk tidy.
• Use the two-minute rule; downscale your habit to make a version that takes 2 minutes or less
e.g. opening the notebook you use for journaling, or getting out your pens, etc.

Make it satisfying – make completing the habit satisfying


• Use reinforcement by giving yourself an immediate reward when you complete your habit.
• Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak and “don’t break the chain.”
• Never miss twice. When you forget to do your habit, make sure you get back on track immediately.

Breaking habits
To break your negative habits, consider the following steps:

Make it invisible
• Reduce exposure by removing the cues of your bad habits from your environment
e.g. put your phone in another room

Make in unattractive
• Reframe your mindset to highlight the benefits of avoiding your bad habits.

Make it difficult
• Increase friction by increasing the number of steps between you and your bad habits.
• Use a commitment device to restrict your future choices to the ones that benefit you.

Make it unsatisfying
• Get an accountability partner who can help monitor your behaviour.
• Create a habit contract to make the costs of your bad habits public and painful.

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