If the new year inspires you to reflect on the kind of life you want to create or the person you hope to become, the science of habit formation is one of the most powerful tools you can use to convert your hopes into a reality.
Habits are behaviors we repeat so frequently that they become automatic, allowing us to perform them without dedicating as much energy to getting started or thinking through every step. For example, we can brush our teeth in the morning while contemplating how we’ll address the various items on our to-do list without skipping a beat. Even complex tasks we do repeatedly can become ingrained as habits, as if our brains were equipped with an expert auto-pilot feature.
Intentionally designing our habits helps us overcome the challenges of making lasting behavior changes by reducing our reliance on daily motivation.
Are there any areas of your life where you’d like to build new, healthy habits this year? Health, relationships, finances, or time use?
To start forming your new habit, follow this simple process:
- Think of an existing habit you already do every day. It could be getting out of bed and making coffee in the morning, brushing your teeth, putting the kids down in the evening, or something else you do daily.
- Link your new behavior to your existing habit. This allows us to use our existing habits to launch our new, desired habit into existence by making it easy to remember and part of an existing process we already do.
- Reward yourself. Whether it’s just the satisfaction of experiencing progress or something more, taking the time to experience a reward from your new habit will help it stick.
For more tools and strategies to help you form healthy habits, check out our new Resilience program. With lessons on gratitude, optimism, finding your passion, and habit change, this program is the perfect companion to help you achieve your goals in the new year. Visit learntolive.com/partners and enter the code INTACT1 to start a program today or scan the QR code below.