How to Build a Habit

Three tips to help you incorporate a new habit into your daily life

We all know that frustrating experience when you decide to start doing something daily from now on, and then you… please don’t do it.

“Starting with tomorrow, I will stop eating processed sugar.”

The next thing you know is that you failed in your mission.

That’s what I am here for today: I will give you three insightful tips on how to build a new habit and incorporate it into your daily life.

Remember:

You are the person that you are when nobody’s watching

Track Your Habits

A perfect way to start incorporating new habits into your daily life is to get a piece of paper (or a whiteboard; it doesn’t matter) and write it down every day of the month.

Next, for each day of the month, make a little square. If you have multiple habits you are trying to build, make various squares each day, one for each habit.

Make each square sit next to its surrounding ones without leaving space between them.

Now, every time you make the habit you promised yourself would be doing, color in the square corresponding to that day and that habit.

If you do this for an entire month, you can quickly see how consistent you were, during times you weren’t very consistent, what habits you struggled with, etc.

Another piece of advice is to hang this paper on a wall you often pass, like in your bedroom.

This makes it so that every time you skip a habit, that white, empty square will scream at you and bother you, ensuring you will complete the habit the next day.

Make Tasks Easy to Complete

Let’s say that you want to start working out.

To ensure you get your workouts in, count the task (in this case, the workout) as complete, even if you do something tiny, like five pushups, or simply show up to the place where you’re supposed to do the workout.

Once you’re there, you will probably start doing the workout anyway.

Even if you stop after those five pushups, you still complete your habit and are on track to keep showing up every day. That is the whole point — getting used to just showing up.

That’s the hard part.

This principle is similar to the 5-minute-rule I discussed in one of my older articles. If you want to learn more about it, you can find it here:

Plan Your Day

Instead of saying, "I will practice piano tomorrow, " you should allocate a specific time slot to piano practice.

Write this time down somewhere, ideally on a piece of paper or in a notebook, and keep it with you all the time.

Once that time rolls around, start practicing piano.

This helps against procrastination.

There is no more “I will do it later” or “I will do it at 3 o’clock” and subsequent “well, it’s 3:05, guess I will have to do it at 4 o’clock now”.

You know what I’m talking about.

It takes power away from your future self (who, remember, is the one that has actually to get up and do the thing and hence is more likely to procrastinate) and gives it to your present self (who is the one planning the things that your future self will have to do and hence less likely to procrastinate).

Of course, sometimes more important things must be done at a specific time and will have to take place in the time slot assigned to your habit.

Try to be disciplined in those scenarios and complete your habit later.

Conclusion

These techniques are some of the tricks that help me build my habits.

They won’t solve all your problems, but they help.

Many little steps in the right direction will eventually lead to your goal.

Another bonus tip: don’t start tomorrow, start now.

It’s pretty obvious, but I’m sure many people out there need to hear this.

Thank you for reading my story and getting to the end.

I wish you a pleasant rest of your day.