How to Start New Habits That Actually Stick

It’s been said that habits are like a warm bath on a cold night – easy to get into and hard to get out of. While that may be true of bad habits, many people find it extremely difficult to get started with good habits – and then to stick with them. Today, we’ll break down the latest research on habit formation, to identify a simple three step process which will help you to cultivate new habits. We’ll also explore tactics to make sure that those habits don’t fall by the wayside. 

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have conducted an array of studies on habits. They have broken down the process of habit formation into three key steps, which they call the habit loop. These three parts are . . .

1. Cue, which is the trigger that starts the habit.
2. Routine, which is the habit itself.
3. Reward, which is the benefit you get from doing the habit.

Habits will not be formed without cues. This is true of both good and bad habits. So, we need to work hard to trigger the right sort of cues – those that will lead to our good habits and not our bad habits. When it comes to cues there are four main types: 

1. Location.
2. Time.
3. The actions of others. 
4. The action that you took immediately prior to starting the habit. 

Let’s take a quick look at each of them… Location is a major habit driver. Many habits are nothing more than responses to our environment. You can manipulate your environment to help develop your new habit. Let’s say your desired new habit is to start going to the gym in the morning before work. Your key environment is your bedroom. Set it up to make it easy to get out the door rather than staying in bed. Lay out your gym clothes, have your trainers out and ready to slip on and place your gym bag by the front door. 

Time cues are very common. We become conditioned to automatically do things at certain times of the day. We can use this to our advantage to trigger new habits. Work on tying your new habit to a time and day. Let’s say that your new habit is to go to the gym three mornings a week before work. As soon as the alarm hits, get up and get moving. 

The actions of others are powerful influences on our habits. But recent research has shown just how pervasive that influence is. One study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed that people who have an obese friend are 57 percent more likely to become obese themselves. So, it is vital that you surround yourself with people who will support your habit. 

With our morning gym habit, it is a great idea to find a workout buddy, and to have people at work and home who ask about how your workouts are going and give you encouragement to keep it up. Getting a text from your friend at 6:10 in the morning to wish you well on your workout is a powerful incentive to make it happen. 

The action you take immediately prior to the habit action is very important. The experts call this habit stacking. This is when you pair a desired new habit with another one which you have already mastered. Let’s go back to the early morning gym habit. You may have already developed the habit of having a coffee first thing in the morning. Pair this with grabbing your workout bag. 

The second phase of the habit loop is the actual performance of the habit. To help make it stick you should do it the same way and with the same rituals. We all have little rituals we perform before we do things. In the gym example, it could be the way that you set yourself before doing a squat or the number of breaths you take before you lift the bar off the rack. You should also perform your habit in the same place every time. 

The third and final phase of the habit loop is the reward. This is based on the scientific principle of operant conditioning. This states that if you get a good feeling after you do a habit, you will continue to do it. The types of rewards that we give to ourselves are individual. Just provide yourself with a small celebration every time you perform your habit. 

This could be as simple as crossing off your gym visits on a calendar over a period of a week, or month. Then, at the end of that time period you might purchase that book you’ve been wanting or go out for a restaurant meal. You don’t have to continue to reward yourself extrinsically forever. Once the habit is established, your rewards will become intrinsic. For example, going back to our workout example, the endorphin rush, self-esteem and bodily improvements that you experience will be rewards in themselves. 

Developing a new habit, it has been said, takes around 21 days. Yet, there is no science behind that number. For some it will become habitual sooner than that, for others it will take more time. Rather than focusing on a number, like 21 days, just focus on repeating the habit loop until you don’t even have to think about it. 

So, how do you stick to a new habit? The first way is to develop new habits one at a time. Make a list of all of the new habits you want to develop, then prioritise them. Start with the most important and focus exclusively on implementing that habit before moving to the next one. Another important tip is to break your habit down into mini-habits. With the gym example, we’ve already identified some key mini habits – setting out your gym clothes and getting your bag ready the night before, mixing up your pre-workout drink, doing your warm-up. Focus on doing those things and the rest will follow. The final piece of advice is to be patient.