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How to Develop Good Habits (I figured it out)

Discussion in 'Self Improvement' started by Unisykolist, Mar 29, 2017.

  1. Unisykolist

    Unisykolist New Fapstronaut

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    Hey fapstronauts. New around here. Long story short I felt like crap for 4 years until I rebooted at the age of 21. Life has never been same since. I've been into the self-improvement scene for 3 years after picking up a book and came to learn the importance of developing habits.

    Here's a piece below I wrote that I hope can help you with your success. It's adapted from a script I'm writing for a video that isn't yet released.

    Hope it helps!
    -Brandon

    How I Came Up With This

    Do you tell yourself you’ll go to the gym? Eat healthy? Or do more study? But you never end up doing these things for more than a few weeks? The secret is to develop habits. As Tony Robbins says, “It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It’s what we do consistently”. My goal for this video was to make it the only resource you’ll ever need to develop habits that stick.

    I failed at developing habits for years. So I sifted through countless habit books, studied tonnes of successful people, spent years testing what works, and have finally come up with 10 keys that have allowed me to develop habits that stick, without ever skipping a single day. Except for one, which was the day after my girlfriend and I broke-up.

    Using these keys I’m about to share with you, I’ve been able to maintain these habit streaks with a 99 percent success rate.

    128 Days Wrote in my journal
    100 Days Drank a glass of water
    65 Days Went on a walk
    49 Days Maintained a vegetarian diet
    34 Days Read for 15 minutes

    1. 66 Days

    Understand that it takes about 66 days to develop a habit. This is why Tai Lopez’s program has 67 steps. He just added one extra because he’s ruthless like that.

    66 is a commonly cited figure that comes from a 2009 study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. The aim was to investigate the process of habit formation in everyday life. 96 volunteers chose an eating, drinking or activity behaviour to carry out daily in the same context for 12 weeks.

    In rare instances it could take 18 to 254 days for a habit to become automatic, 66 days was just the median time it took to reach 95 percent asymptote. For... the minority of you that somehow remember that mumbo jumbo you learnt in maths class.

    21 days is a common myth from the book Psycho Cybernetics. So don’t give up until you reach at least 66 days because each consecutive day your habit becomes a little more automatic.

    2. Build One Habit At A Time

    Multitasking. Big fucking mistake. You’ll end up diversifying your focus and losing them all. As a rule of thumb, I only like to start building another habit after 30 days when my first one is semi-automatic.

    3. The KISS Principle

    Keep It Simple Stupid. Stop setting the bar so high that you can’t be fucked maintaining the habit. You wake up and go “Oh shiiit. I gotta jog 4 miles…” or “Oh man… I can’t be assed doing 30 pushups today” Dude. Make it so fucking easy your grandma could do it. Do 10 pushups. 5 pushups. 1 pushup if you have to. Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits says, “Isn’t it easier just to move forward one centimeter and let momentum help you out?”

    For each habit you develop, find the sweet spot that works for you. I wanted to develop a 20-minute exercise habit but the thought of jogging for 20-minutes every god-damn day was emotionally taxing. So I started out walking for 5-minutes. I’m on day 65 and walk for 20-minutes every day because when I’m already outside, I figure I may as well keep going. As Woody Allen said, “80 percent of success is showing up”.

    4. Establish Your Why

    You want to exercise every day? Why? When you feel like giving up, return to why you started in the first place. Use it as fuel to keep going. Also ensure the habit is intrinsically rewarding. Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits says, “True self-discipline is not when you have someone ordering you to do push-ups, it’s when you decide on your own to do them.”

    5. Keep The Context Constant

    “There is consensus that habits are acquired through incremental strengthening of the association between a situation (cue) and an action, i.e. repetition of a behaviour in a consistent context progressively increases the automaticity with which the behaviour is performed when the situation is encountered.” - Study (European Journal of Social Psychology) How are habits formed:Modelling habit formation in the real world

    This is why I always sit down at the dining room table to write in my journal and follow the same route on my walk every day.

    6. Be Held Accountable

    Here are 3-ways.

    1. Tracking
    I hate times, dates, numbers and feeling obligated to check in with something regularly. But this is necessary. Don’t worry though - the Streaks app makes it incredibly easy. All you have to do is download the app to your iPhone. For Android users, try HabitBull. Add your habit, then tap and hold the circle every morning and admire your habit streak rising every day.

    2. Social Accountability
    Here, have a short-lived dose of this inspiring quote from Stephen Covey, “Accountability breeds responsibility”. I proclaimed my goals on my personal Facebook page for this reason. Tell your friends or drop a comment below to hold yourself accountable.

    3. Stakes
    Give ya best mate 500 dollars and tell him that no matter what, he can’t give your 500 back unless you complete your habit every single day for 30 days. What are your chances of doing so? Very high indeed. In fact, Stickk is a goal accountability site where you can put money on the line. You lose it if you don’t check in on your habits regularly. According to Stickk, the goal completion percentages of 2008-2011 for people who chose not to put money on the line was 34 percent. Those who offered to give up money if they failed to achieve their goal had a goal completion rate of 73 percent. They were twice as likely to follow through.

    I spent over 30 dollars on a moleskine journal instead of a 3 dollar journal which was essentially my stake. Because I had invested so much into the journal, I was more motivated to make use of it so my money didn’t go to waste.

    7. Never Skip 2 Consecutive Days

    Research shows that failing to execute a habit for 1 day isn't a big deal. It simply decreases your odds of adopting the habit by 5 percent. But if you miss 2 days, that figure jumps to 55 percent. I learnt this from a video created by Productivity Game on YouTube but struggling to find the original source.

    8. Do It In The Morning

    Every success book ever touts about ego depletion - The idea that our willpower is like a muscle. A limited resource. I was curious so I decided to dig up the science for you. Roy Baumeister and his team published a study in 1998. They found that “the self’s capacity for active volition is limited and that a range of seemingly different, unrelated acts share a common resource.”

    Ego depletion is the reason I develop habits in the morning, when my willpower muscle is at its peak.

    9. Pain and Pleasure Principle

    Every habit you pursue is based on this principle. Consider the pleasure you’ll gain from regular exercise. Now consider pain of being sedentary, aka - a lazy ass. By ingraining this into your mind, you’ll gain more motivation to stick to your desired habit.

    10. Write It Down

    A study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology found that those who embarked on a 2 week exercise program, would exercise more if they wrote down the following behaviour statement: "During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on DAY at TIME OF DAY at/in PLACE". The researchers found that those who wrote down their intended behaviour were 3 times more likely to complete their intended exercise program.
     
    Hros, Haadi, AppyB and 16 others like this.
  2. Off topic :-
    Yeah long story ... I skipped a little.

    From :- new around here.
    To :- program.

    :p
    About the post.

    Great. Atleast you know about youself and how to improve your habits. :)
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  3. Capt.

    Capt. Fapstronaut

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    Solid post!
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  4. Excellent post.
     
  5. The |E|volutionary

    The |E|volutionary Fapstronaut

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    It's always the best posts that get little attention. The usual trash gets all the likes. Great post, Uni.
     
  6. Much useful, will definitely try it !
     
  7. D2dak1987

    D2dak1987 Guest

    Great post. Thanks!
     
  8. trusttheprocess

    trusttheprocess Fapstronaut

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    Great post. Really helpful. As I also believe we all relapse because we lack self-discipline and have very weak will power. This is a great exercise to develope these skills.
    But I think it will be prefarable to put about 5 baby step habits. This will help us keep busy and use our time properly.
    As it said in your post it is all about CONSISTENCY and not INTENSITY. It is prefarable to have one habit that you do daily than 5 that you rarely do.
     
    Last edited: Apr 28, 2017
  9. Timothy Wheless

    Timothy Wheless New Fapstronaut

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    Great post. Each mentioned point is worth considering. Should inculcate these habits in everyone
     
  10. Lewit

    Lewit Fapstronaut

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    I will follow your words!Dude. I will be a better man!
     

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