Learn how to Construct Wholesome Habits in 2024 (5 Behavior Constructing Hacks)

Sooner or later up to now week (or 5 minutes in the past after a Google search), you’ve made a decision to vary your life.

Perhaps you determined to train each day. Maybe it’s time to start out consuming higher.

Or possibly you determined to cease sporting jorts.

Nicely my buddy, I’m excited for you, and I need you to know you’ve arrived on the proper place!

We assist of us construct wholesome habits as a part of our 1-on-1 On-line Teaching Program, so that you’ve come to the suitable place to meet your decision.

We will educate you the best way to construct habits the suitable means! Be taught extra about our On-line Teaching Program:

Right here’s what we’ll cowl in our Information to Construct Wholesome Habits in 2024:

Let’s get proper to it so you can begin rocking 2022!

Why Do We Suck At Constructing Wholesome Habits?

“I do know what I’m speculated to do, I simply can’t get myself to do it!” 

Welcome to the membership – everyone knows what we have to do, however we simply can’t get ourselves to make the essential adjustments.

We all know how to get in shape: move more and eat less!

We know how to exercise: get your heart rate up, do some push-ups, get stronger.

We know how to eat healthy: more vegetables and less sugar.

And yet, we can’t get ourselves to stick with ANY of these things for longer than a few weeks.

Why?

Simple: Building new healthy habits is tough, our lizard brains crave instant gratification, we don’t fully understand how habits are built, life gets busy, and our default behavior is often as unhealthy as it is easy.

As a result, we don’t put the right systems in place in order to make changes stick.

We also rely wayyyyy too much on willpower and motivation.

We tend to bite off more than we can chew, go too fast too soon, and then get overwhelmed too quickly.

Does this sound familiar?

• I’m going to eat 100% Paleo/Keto AND
• I’m going to run 5 miles a day AND
• I’m going to work out in a gym five times a week.

If you’re somebody that eats a typically poor diet, never runs, and hasn’t set foot in a gym since grade-school dodgeball with Mr. Wazowski, changing alllll of these at once is almost a surefire way to succeed at precisely NONE of them.

We’re conditioned these days to expect and receive instant gratification. If we want food we can get it from a drive-through, stick a frozen meal in a microwave, or sit down at a restaurant that’s open 24 hours. If we want a game we can download it to our computers/phones/PS5s within a matter of seconds. If we want to watch a TV show, it’s a few clicks away.

Hell, Netflix even starts the next episode for you without any action required!

We expect getting in shape to go the same way.  

And this is why we suck at building healthy habits that stick.

We tell ourselves “Hey, I’ve been dedicated for a whole two weeks, why don’t I look like Ryan Reynolds yet?”, not remembering that it took us decades of unhealthy living to get where we are, which means it’s going to take more than a few weeks to reverse the trend.

And then we miss a workout because life was busy or our kid got sick. And we get disheartened that exercise or giving up candy is not nearly as fun as Netflix and video games and Peanut M&M’s.

This is where everybody gives up:

• They try to change too many habits too soon
• They get impatient the results don’t come more quickly
• They slip up when life gets busy
• And they go back to square one

It’s why we are doomed to stay overweight and suck at building habits. It’s the videogame equivalent of attacking too many bad guys at once, which always leads to game over.

We’ll cover the specific healthy habits and resolutions you SHOULD be picking later in this article, but I have a big damn question to ask you first:

“But why though?”

The First Step of Building Healthy Habits (Know Your “Big Why”)

Before we do ANYTHING with actually building habits, it can help to have a good reason as to why you want to build them in the first place or the changes will never stick.

This whole “change who I am” stuff can be really powerful for keeping us focused when life starts to get busy. 

If you’re here because you decided you “should” get in shape, you’re going to fail the second life gets busy.

If you are dragging yourself to the gym because you think you “should” run on a treadmill five days a week even though you hate it, you’re screwed!

As you’re determining the habits or resolutions you’re trying to set, make the habit part of a bigger cause that’s worth the struggle.

You’re not just going to the gym, you’re building a new body that you’re not ashamed of so you can start dating again.

You’re not just learning to like vegetables, you’re getting fit so you can feel great while on vacation this summer.

You’re not just dragging yourself out of bed early, you’re getting up earlier so you can work on your side business before your kids get up so you can set money aside for their college education.

In our 1-on-1 Coaching Program, we refer to this as your “Big Why.” 

Tie your journey to a greater cause and you’re more likely to push through the muck and mire to get it done.

So dig 3 levels deep and ask “why” until you get to the root cause of WHY you want to build a new healthy habit or change a bad one. Write it down. And hang it up somewhere you can see it every day.

Got your reason? Great.

Now let’s get into the science of habits.

How to Build Healthy Habits (The Three Parts)

As Charles Duhigg points out in The Power of Habit (a must-read for anyone excited by conduct change), there are three elements to a behavior:

#1) Cue (what triggers the motion): It may be a sense: I’m drained, I’m hungry, I’m bored, I’m unhappy. Or it may be a time of day: it’s Monday at 9am, work is completed, and so on.

#2) Routine (the motion itself): This could both be a detrimental motion you wish to reduce: I drink soda, I eat cake, I snack, I drink alcohol, I smoke cigarettes, I watch TV – or a optimistic one: I’m going to the fitness center, I’m going for a run, I do push-ups, I learn a e book.

#3) Reward (the optimistic consequence due to the motion): I’m now awake. I’m briefly pleased. My arms/thoughts are occupied. I can overlook the dangerous day I had. I really feel energized. I be ok with myself.

Relying in your routine/motion above, habits can both be empowering and wonderful, or a part of a detrimental downward spiral. Your physique isn’t good sufficient to KNOW what it must do: it simply desires to repair the ache or chase the pleasure of the cue, and whichever means you select to reply will turn into the behavior when it’s completed sufficient instances.

Think about genius advertising and marketing, behavioral psychology, and an surroundings arrange for us to fail – and dangerous habits rule us.

It’s why we crave sure meals, why we will’t assist however examine our telephone each time it vibrates, and why we will’t preserve ourselves from watching yet one more episode or grinding yet one more degree in World of Warcraft.

Duhigg lays issues out very clearly:

“There may be nothing programmed into our brains that makes us see a field of doughnuts and routinely need a sugary deal with.

However as soon as our mind learns {that a} doughnut field comprises yummy sugar and different carbohydrates, it should begin anticipating the sugar excessive. Our brains will push us towards the field. Then, if we don’t eat the doughnut, we’ll really feel upset.”

Image this:

• We now have skilled your mind to take a cue (you see a doughnut), anticipate a reward (a sugar excessive), and make the conduct automated (nom nom that donut).
• Evaluate that to a cue (you see your trainers), anticipate a reward (a runner’s excessive), and make the conduct automated (go for a run!).

The Darkish Knight himself mentioned it finest: “It’s not who I’m beneath, however what I do that defines me.”

Let’s check out every a part of the habit-building course of and begin to hack the sh** out of it!

Be taught Your Cues: Acknowledge the triggers.

Whether or not you are attempting to vary an previous behavior, cease an unhealthy behavior, or start a wholesome behavior, it begins with step one within the course of:

“The Cue.”

If you wish to cease consuming soda, however really feel such as you want it each afternoon to get via work, your mind has been wired to assume SODA after the cue:

• Cue: I’m drained, thirsty, and don’t have any power.
• Routine: I drink a soda round 3pm.
• Reward: Weeeeee caffeine! Sugar! Joyful! My life has that means!

When figuring out dangerous habits to keep away from, it begins by turning into conscious of the cue that units the behavior in movement. Merely being conscious of the cue is a good begin to breaking the cycle:

• Once I get bored (cue), I eat snacks (routine), and it fills the void with a cheerful abdomen (reward).
• Once I come residence from work (cue), I plop down on the sofa and play video video games (routine), and it helps me overlook about work (reward).
• Once I get nervous (cue), I begin to chunk my nails (routine), to take my thoughts off the awkwardness (reward).

So in case you are seeking to break a nasty behavior, it begins by figuring out what the cues are that make you’re taking the motion that you just’re making an attempt to cease.

On the identical time, you’ll be able to mentally practice your self, identical to Pavlov’s canine, to construct a brand new wholesome behavior by figuring out the behavior you wish to construct and the cue you wish to use to proceed it:

• Once I get up (cue), I’ll go for a stroll (routine), and reward myself with an audiobook on the stroll (reward).
• Once I get drained (cue), I’ll drink black espresso as a substitute of soda (routine), and together with the caffeine enhance. (reward), I’ll get new trainers after 30 soda-free days (reward), and satisfaction from the load loss due to fewer energy (reward).
• Once I come residence from work (cue), I’ll stroll straight to my laptop to work on my novel for half-hour (routine), and reward myself with Netflix after I’ve written 500 phrases (reward).

So, whether or not you’re breaking a nasty behavior or beginning a brand new one, it begins by recognizing the cue that triggers the behavior.

When you acknowledge or choose the cue, you can begin engaged on fixing the routine (motion).

The Key to Sustainable Wholesome Habits: Use Techniques

“Steve, I get it, however I nonetheless battle with the ‘constructing the routine’ half…for some purpose I simply can’t convey myself to do it.”

Yup – welcome to the hardest a part of a behavior:

The Routine (the motion itself!).

That is the place we’re going to start out pondering and appearing like nerds and scientists.

Whether or not we’re making an attempt to cease a detrimental routine (cease consuming soda) or begin doing a wholesome routine (begin operating), each should be addressed with a distinct plan of assault.

For starters, we’re going to cease counting on two issues:

• Willpower: if it’s important to get your self to train, you’ll surrender whenever you get too busy or it’s too chilly.
• Motivation: if it’s good to be motivated, you’re going to surrender after which beat your self up for not being extra motivated!

Each motivation and willpower are finite and fickle resources that will abandon you when you need them most. Most people hope and pray that they have enough motivation and willpower to build a habit.

Not us though!

We’re going to remove both from the equation and use systems and outside forces to make the routine even easier to build (or tougher to build if it’s a bad habit you’re trying to swap!).

This can be done in a few ways:

• Environmental hacks: making the routine easier by removing steps needed to complete it, or adding steps between you and a bad habit.
• Programming hacks: add your habit to your daily calendar, track your progress daily with a journal, and make it part of your day.

We are products of our environment. We can use this information to our advantage and make the process of building a new habit or changing a bad habit easier by modifying our environment. I dig into this more fully in our article: “Build your Batcave for Habit Change,” but I’ll cover the basics here.

Look at the places you spend your time. Reduce the steps between you and a good habit, and increase the steps between you and a bad habit. You’ll be less reliant on willpower and motivation and more likely to do the healthy habit or skip the bad habit.

Here are five examples of environmental hacks you can use: 

1. RUN EVERY MORNING: Go to sleep with your running shoes at the foot of your bed, with your running uniform laid out already. Hell, you can sleep in your running/workout clothes. Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room so you HAVE to get out of bed to turn it off.
2. GO TO THE GYM AFTER WORK: Pack your gym bag BEFORE going to sleep the night before. That way, every morning you already have a bag to throw in your car or bring with you. As soon as 5pm hits, you are in your car on your way to the gym. (Don’t want to head to the gym? Here’s how to build a gym in your home). 
3. EAT HEALTHIER: Don’t give yourself the option of not eating healthy – throw out the junk food in your house and start preparing meals the night before. Put a lock on your web browser from ordering pizza online (yes, you can do that now), and don’t drive down the street full of fast food places.
4. WATCH LESS TV/PLAY FEWER GAMES: Use your laziness in your favor. Unplug the TV/system. Increase the steps between you and watching the TV. Put parental controls on your own system and have your friend set the time limit and the password. I knew somebody who put his TV in his closet and cut his TV viewing by close to 100%. Don’t rely on willpower – make it more difficult!
5. CHECK YOUR PHONE LESS: Turn off your notifications and uninstall the apps that waste your time. Put your phone in Do Not Disturb mode when you are at work, and put it in your desk drawer. Don’t rely on willpower to get yourself to not check your phone when it buzzes – get rid of the buzz.

You can also use programming hacks to help build NEW healthy habits: 

• EXERCISE: If you want to exercise more, set calendar alerts at the beginning of your week so that every day at 8AM you receive a cue (ding! on your phone) and a reminder to do the activity. You’re much more likely to stay on target when the activity has been scheduled ahead of time.
• HEALTHY EATING: Consider batch cooking! If cooking healthy meals every night sounds like way too much work (I hear you on that), consider doing it all on ONE day – it’s a significant time-saver, and it also will reduce the steps between you and healthy eating because the meal is already cooked and in the fridge!
• WRITING: If you want to write a book, tell yourself you have to write 500 crappy words every day. This is how I wrote Level Up Your Life. Purchase a calendar, and draw an enormous crimson X on each day you full your process. Make your singular focus each day persevering with the streak^[1].

Make the Reward Momentum-Constructing

And we’re lastly on the third a part of the behavior:

“The Reward.”

When seeking to change dangerous habits, do some reward evaluation in your dangerous habits:

Soda offers you a caffeine kick and a burst of power within the afternoon whenever you’re drained.

Are you able to replicate that power enhance in your physique in a more healthy means? Maybe you’ll be able to swap to black espresso and go for a day stroll.

Right here’s one other instance:

You discover you spend an excessive amount of time watching TV since you love escaping into worlds, and it’s affecting your well being.

Are you able to take heed to your favourite audiobook solely whenever you stroll?

(That is known as temptation bundling).

This step will require some analysis, by digging into the reward you’re trying to recreate, without the negative action. This can lead your brain to some tough places, but it’s healthy to dig into it.

For example, if you  want to start drinking less (or give up completely), you might discover that the reward you’re chasing is actually “escape from a job I hate” and “avoiding social anxiety.”

Dig into your reward and what your brain is craving, and then see if you can reverse engineer a healthier routine with the same reward.

And then use outright bribery to get yourself to actually do the new healthier and choose the better action/routine.

What works for science and physics also holds true to building habits: inertia and momentum will work against you when it comes to building habits…until it starts to work for you as the habit becomes automatic.

We can fix the third part of the habit-building loop, the reward, with momentum-building prizes or results to bribe ourselves to continue. With each healthy and positive reward, with each completed routine, we make the habit sliiiiightly more likely to become more automatic the next time.

In other words, create rewards that reward you back!

DON’T reward your routine (running!) with an unhealthy reward (cake!). That’s “one step forward, two steps back.” And nutrition is 90% of the equation when it comes to weight loss anyway!

DO reward your routine (running for 5 minutes every day for 30 days straight) with a reward that makes you want to keep running (a snazzy new pair of running shoes).

Our new app, Nerd Fitness Journey, specifically follows this “cue, routine, and reward” format to help build new habits. In the app, we “reward” you with cool loot and XP, so you can level up (literally) while you getting lean and strong.

If you’re interested, you can try it for free right here:

5 Hacks for Effortless Healthy Habit building

Your life will get busy. 

There will be days when you don’t want to do your new habit. Or you want to backslide and go back to old habits. Actually, that will pretty much be every day, especially early on.

So don’t leave it up to yourself!!!

Stop relying on yourself and start relying on outside forces. Here are the best tips you can use to get yourself to actually follow through with a habit:

1) RECRUIT ALLIES: find a friend or group of friends to build the habits with you. A recent study ^[2] confirmed that:

Among the many weight reduction sufferers recruited alone and given behavioral remedy, 24% maintained their weight reduction in full from Months 4 to 10.

Amongst these recruited with mates and given remedy plus social assist, 95% accomplished remedy and 66% maintained their weight reduction in full.

You do not need to go on this habit-building journey alone. Constructing a guild or recruiting a bunch of individuals to assist you and enable you and make you higher could possibly be the difference-maker in constructing habits!

When your buddy is already on the fitness center ready for you, you HAVE to go. If it was as much as you, skipping out and watching Netflix has no detrimental penalties. Recruit mates and allies!

Don’t have that assist group at residence? Consider joining ours 🙂

Keep in mind, these first few weeks are the hardest, which suggests they’ll require essentially the most effort to get began.

2) CULTIVATE DISCIPLINE WITH ACCOUNTABILITY: When you’ll be able to’t get your self to observe via on a brand new wholesome behavior you’re desperately making an attempt to construct, make the ache of skipping the behavior extra extreme than the satisfaction you get from skipping it.

Permit me to introduce some comical penalties:

• Each time I skip ______________ this month, I’ll pay $50 to my spouse/husband/buddy who will donate my cash to a trigger I HATE.
• Each time I determine to not _______________ this month, I’ve to run round my home bare.
• Each time I do ____________ after I shouldn’t, I’ll let my three-year-old do my make-up earlier than work.

Do any of those outcomes sound like enjoyable? In the event you can’t afford to pay your buddy $50, if operating bare round your home would possibly get you arrested, and in case you’ll get fired trying like a drunk clown due to your child’s make-up expertise…possibly you simply do what you realize it’s good to do. The extra painful it’s to skip one thing, the extra seemingly you’ll be to really suck it up and do it.

3) NEVER MISS TWO IN A ROW. What occurs in case you miss a day? Who cares! Someday received’t damage you – however two days will, as a result of 2 missed days can turn into a month or a yr within the blink of an eye fixed.

It’s one thing I convey up on this video over on our YouTube Channel:

As identified in a analysis abstract:

“Lacking the occasional alternative to carry out the conduct didn’t critically impair the behavior formation course of: automaticity good points quickly resumed after one missed efficiency.^[3]

4) DON’T PICK HABITS YOU HATE: “Steve, I do know I ought to run so I’m making an attempt to construct a operating behavior although I hate operating.” Cease.

Are you able to get the identical outcomes with a distinct behavior, like mountain climbing or mountain climbing or swing dancing? Choose a behavior that isn’t depressing and also you’re extra prone to observe via on it.

On the identical time, we now have tons of success tales of people that went from hating train to loving the way it feels.

It’s as a result of they made the behavior a part of an even bigger image: “I’m understanding as a result of I’m constructing a kickass physique so I can begin relationship once more!”

Or even when they don’t LOVE energy coaching, they love feeling robust and assured and highly effective, in order that they construct the behavior and make it a precedence.

It’s as a result of that they had a BIG sufficient why to beat their preliminary dislike of train till they realized to like how train made them really feel.

5) TRY TEMPTATION BUNDLING: Think about combining a behavior you dislike with one thing you LOVE, and also you’ll be extra prone to construct the behavior.

In the event you hate cleansing your condominium, solely permit your self to take heed to your favourite podcast when you’re cleansing or doing the dishes.

Need to go to the fitness center extra? Permit your self an hour of watching Netflix, however ONLY whilst you’re on the elliptical.

That is known as temptation bundling, and it may be a strong change.

The Secret to Fulfilling Your Decision (Do Much less)

Now that you just’re educated like a boss on the completely different elements of a behavior, it’s time to construct one!

I’ll depart you with a closing bit of recommendation: if you determine that you just wish to run a marathon or save the world or lose tons of of kilos, you’re going to screw up until you internalize the next data:

DO WAY LESS.

Or within the immortal phrases of Kunu from Forgetting Sarah Marshall: “The much less you do, the extra you do”:

Choose ONE behavior, make it small, and make it binary. One thing that on the finish of each day you’ll be able to say “sure I did it” or “no I didn’t.”

Habits which might be nebulous like “I’m going to train extra” or “I’m going to start out consuming higher” are extra ineffective than a Soulcycle membership for Jabba the Hutt.

Listed here are huge examples. Be particular. Be small. And observe it:

• Need to begin exercising extra? Superior. For that first week, ONLY go for a stroll for simply 5 minutes each morning. Actually 5 minutes.
• Need to begin cooking your individual wholesome meals? Simply goal for one meal per day or one meal per week. No matter works for you and your schedule.
• Need to cease consuming a 2 liter of Mountain Dew each day? Scale it again to 1.9 liters a day for per week. Then 1.8 for per week. Then 1.7…
• Need to get out of debt and construct the behavior of frugality? Begin by saving an additional 5 bucks a day, or discovering a method to earn an additional 5 bucks a day.
• Need to be taught a brand new language? Communicate your new language out loud for 10 minutes per day. That’s it!

Maintain your objectives SMALL and easy. The smaller and easier they’re, the extra seemingly you might be to maintain them. And the behavior itself pales compared to the momentum you construct from really creating a brand new behavior.

I don’t care what number of energy you burn in a 5-minute stroll, simply which you can show to the brand new YOU which you can construct the behavior of strolling, and solely then are you able to up the problem.

We’re pondering when it comes to years and many years right here! So assume small.

My real-life instance: I wished to construct the behavior of studying the violin at age 31, however couldn’t get myself to do it as a result of I advised myself I used to be too busy, which is a lie (“I only have 25 minutes; I need 30 minutes to practice…might as well not practice at all”), and thus I never played!

Once I lowered the threshold to “I have to only play for 5 minutes per day,” it gave me permission to pick it up here and there – and I ended up practicing WAY more frequently, and got better much faster.

I still suck, mind you, but I’m lightyears ahead of where I was before!

And please: DON’T BUILD ALL THE HABITS AT THE SAME TIME. 

If you’re new to building habits, or you have never stuck with anything long enough to make it automatic, it’s because you did too much. Habits are compound interest.

As you build a new habit, it bleeds over to other parts of your life and makes future habits easier to build too – momentum!

As Mark Manson lays out in his guide on Habits: 

“Willpower is sort of a muscle. It may be exercised and practiced and constructed up. It will also be forgotten, weakened and atrophied.

Similar to going to the fitness center and build up energy and endurance, you’ll be able to construct up your self-discipline and willpower over an extended time period by setting and conducting a sequence of duties on a constant foundation.”

You’ve in all probability tried the entire “construct all of the habits without delay” and it doesn’t work. So strive constructing ONE behavior for 30 days. After which choose a behavior that stacks on prime of that one and helps you construct an increasing number of progress and an increasing number of momentum.

Begin at this time: Choose Your Behavior and Go

I’ll depart you with a closing quote from Duhigg’s The Energy of Behavior:

“In the event you imagine you’ll be able to change – in case you make it a behavior – the change turns into actual. That is the true energy of behavior: the perception that your habits are what you selected them to be. As soon as that alternative happens – and turns into automated – it’s not solely actual, it begins to look inevitable, the factor…that bears us irresistibly towards our future, regardless of the latter could also be.”

You’ll want extra brainpower initially, till your default conduct turns into the automated habit-building you’re chasing.

With every day of you constructing your new behavior, you’re overcoming any self-limiting perception, constructing momentum, and turning into a habit-building badass! After which these habits turn into automated. Then, we rejoice:

So at this time, I need you to take a look at simply ONE behavior you wish to change:

• Establish the cue that spurs it on – Is it the time of day? Boredom? Starvation? After work? Stress?
• Establish the potential rewards – Happiness? Power? Satisfaction?
• Establish a brand new routine you’d like to determine that ends in the identical “reward” from the detrimental conduct…however in a extra productive and wholesome means.

Need extra assist? 

I write the best newsletter in the galaxy – it’s two short emails a week, directly from my brain to your inbox, and I promise to make you laugh and live a bit better!

Want expert guidance on your healthy habit building in 2024? Sign up for a free call with our coaching team in the box below to learn more about the program and see if it’s the right fit:

Our coaching program changes lives! Learn more here.

I want you to leave a comment below: pick ONE habit that you’re going to build this month and identify the three portions of the habit you’re looking to build.

Good luck – now go build some momentum.

And ONE habit.

-Steve

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