Create A Keystone Habit
A keystone is defined as a stone at the crown of an arch that locks the other pieces in place. As it relates to habits, a keystone habit is one that sets off a chain reaction of other habits related to it. Essentially a keystone habit helps hold the related habits in place.
Keystone habits are like any other habit in that they can be considered good or bad. Good keystone habits evoke positive outcomes and set off a chain reaction of other habits that increase a person’s quality of life. Or they can be a bad keystone habit that ends up negatively affecting life and brings with it more bad habits.
Possibly the most well-known positive keystone habit is daily exercise. When you’re able to make daily exercise a habit, it most likely will become a keystone habit. In that, it will bring with it other positive habits. Let’s say you’ve spent the last month making sure you make time to go to the gym every single day, no matter what. The effort you put in translates to more related habits. Things like you stop eating out as much so that you can control your calorie intake more closely. This leads to spending less money because you’re cooking at home more often. And you end up cutting down on your alcohol consumption because you’re staying home more often. Because you exercise daily, you are more tired at the end of the day, so you start going to bed earlier and ultimately get a better night’s sleep. All of these smaller habits formed because of the daily exercise, making it a keystone habit.
As many positive small habits that can come from a keystone habit such as daily exercise, the same can happen with a bad keystone habit. Take drug use, for example. The habit of abusing a drug daily can take over your life in such a way that most of your decisions become based on the addiction. Your life is negatively affected overall.
Therefore, it’s very important to keep a close eye on your daily habits. Self-examination of habits and honesty with yourself is crucial, in an attempt to get rid of any habits, especially keystone habits that sabotage your happiness. Your goal should be to develop a positive keystone habit and let the smaller positive habits that come along with it bring you a happier, more fulfilled life.
Create A New Habit By Hitching It To An Existing One
So, you’ve examined your daily habits and you have come to the conclusion that you would benefit from setting a new habit for yourself. You’re taking a positive step in the right direction. Everyone has some habits that could be ditched altogether or changed. Healthy habits heighten happiness. But, what’s the best way to go about forming a new habit?
We know that creating a new habit takes some time, at least three weeks. And to create a novel habit, you’ll have to repeat the behavior enough times to form new neurological pathways in the brain. Oftentimes, it’s easier and takes less time to create a new habit by building it onto an existing one. Essentially using an existing habit as the trigger for the new habit. When forming the new habit is perceived as easier, less intimidating, and less overwhelming the rate of success becomes higher. The chance that you will slip up or give up altogether decreases.
Building a new habit onto an existing habit can be done when you utilize a cue that already evokes a behavior. You can then add the new behavior to the existing habit. For example, you decide that you want to start a new habit of practicing gratitude. You would like to start a gratitude journal that you write in every morning. You already have existing habits in the morning you can build onto. A common morning habit is drinking a cup of coffee. So, one way to build your new habit into an existing one would be to keep your new gratitude journal next to the coffee maker. Every morning, as you drink your coffee, you are reminded to write in your journal. Eventually, writing in the gratitude journal every morning becomes a habit as you drink your coffee.
Starting a new habit that sticks and changing existing habits can be tricky. We, as humans are said to be creatures of habit. In fact, some studies show that our daily behaviors are about 40% done out of habit. Changing habits requires conscious decisions and effort. But, by adding a new habit onto an already existing habit, changing your routine is made easier. Therefore, you will be more likely to stick with this new desired habit and less likely to give up or to have slip-ups along the way.
Plan Ahead And Set Yourself Up For Success
It’s important to frequently self-analyze to assess whether or not the habits you have been working for you. Overall happiness is directly related to our habits. After all, the behaviors we perform every day make us who we are. But, sometimes keeping good habits is easier said than done. In fact, it’s reported that about 85% of New Year’s Resolutions fail. There are some things you can do to set yourself up for success and end up having a better chance of having your desired habit stick. Planning ahead will help set you up for success with your desired habit.
If you’re able to foresee some of your possible stumbling blocks, you can have a plan ready to fight against them. As an example, let’s say that your goal is to make it a habit to eat more fresh foods and smaller portions overall. Think about situations when doing so would be difficult and come up with a plan. For example, if you want to eat less processed foods and more fresh foods, keep less processed foods available. This way you won’t be as tempted if the foods you’re trying to stay away from aren’t in the cupboard. Similarly, if you want to be in the habit of eating more fresh foods, that’s what you should have readily available. Meal planning would make sense here too. If in the past, you like to reach for potato chips as a snack, have an alternative ready, like carrot sticks or sliced bell peppers. In order to combat the smaller portions part of the desired habit, some ways you can think ahead to success would be to use a smaller plate. Or even the plastic plates with dividers will help you keep the portions regulated.
In order to help you predict what some of the upcoming challenges might be, it may be advantageous to make a list. First, write down your desired habit. Then, think about the upcoming week. Try to put yourself in the scenarios that will likely come up, related to your goal and write them down. Are you planning to attend a party? Visitors coming into town? Are you working more or fewer hours than usual? Anything out of the ordinary might be a stumbling block unless you plan ahead. Write out a plan for the scenarios that may prove challenging for you and your new habit. Like, bringing your own food to the party. With a little forethought, you can combat some of your possible upcoming stumbling blocks and set yourself up for success in following through with your good habit.
Frequency Matters - Work on Daily Habits
Habits are established through the repetition of a behavior every day until that behavior becomes almost automatic. The frequency of the behavior is a key component to habit formation. A new habit will form faster when the behavior is performed every single day as opposed to a few times a week. This is one of the reasons that you should start small when it comes to habit change.
Focusing on one habit at a time will improve your chances of following through with the frequency of the habit you are trying to form. You will attain your goal of making the behavior a habit faster if the behavior is repeated daily. An example of attempting too much change at once, making it harder to change at all, might be; you try to start exercising daily, stop biting your nails and cut out sugar. The chances that you will be able to do all of these new behaviors as frequently as every day decreases, and so does the chance that you will follow through and succeed in making them a habit. Instead, it’s more effective to focus on one new habit at a time.
Once you have decided which one behavior you want to start with, it’s important that you perform the habit every day. Putting some reminders to use will help you follow through as well. You can write notes to yourself and put them in places that will help you stay on track. You can enlist the help of friends or family to help support you or even set an alarm on your phone. Whatever it takes to perform the behavior as frequently as every day. This will help embed the behavior in your brain and ensure that it becomes a habit as fast as possible. Even after doing something every day, forming a new habit can take as long as 3 weeks. So try to stay patient and on track with your goal. If you are able to continue the behavior past the 3 month mark, it becomes more likely the habit will become a lifestyle
Remember, we all have setbacks here and there. When that happens, get right back up and start again the next day. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just keep reaching for your goal of everyday frequency and eventually, the behavior will become a habit, possibly even a lifestyle.
Remove Temptations And Stumbling Blocks
We live in a world where you can get nearly whatever you want, almost instantly. When trying to focus on starting up a good habit, temptations can make it difficult. They seem to be everywhere and can be very easy to give in to. Although temptations can prove to be stumbling blocks for good habits, there are several things you can do to help you stay away from them.
First, establish the new behavior you want to make a habit of. Once you have decided on the desired habit, you will need to discover your possible temptations and stumbling blocks. It may be helpful to write these out. Oftentimes, by writing out obstacles and solutions we are able to wrap our brains around them easier. Temptations are personalized to you, what might be a pitfall for someone else, might be no problem for you. So, the point is to think about what will make following through with this new habit difficult for you.
Once you’ve recognized your possible pitfalls, you can make a plan to get rid of them or try to overcome them. Getting rid of temptations might be as easy as simply not buying certain foods anymore or setting out workout clothes the night before. But, most likely there will be temptations and possible stumbling blocks that won't be so easy to get rid of. Planning for these will help you greatly in securing your success with habit formation. The company we keep tends to have an influence on our behaviors. Talking to your family and friends about your goals and explaining how they can assist you with stumbling blocks can be helpful as well. Maybe your family will help by deciding to eat better with you, eliminating junk foods at home. Or, a friend may want to cut back on overspending at restaurants too and you can enjoy a night watching movies at home.
Temptations are a given when trying to change our habits. It’s imperative that you discover your possible pitfalls. Once these stumbling blocks are identified, planning for them is the key to combating them. No one is perfect. If you find that you have given in to whatever temptation it is that can derail your progress toward your goal, don’t give up. Tomorrow is another day to try again. Who you are as a person boils down to the things we choose to do every day. So, good habits should be something all of us strive for.
