How many goals have you set that you don’t follow through with? Do you avoid making resolutions because you know you will likely not follow it through the entire year?

Us too! That is why we are going to talk about actual real life ways to change your bad habits and establish good habits. No more I wish I could, this is about doing!

Sticking with a new plan, no matter what it is can be hard, because the truth is life happens. So we want to equip you with a way to establish behaviors that turn into your lifestyle, instead of just making goals, that let’s be honest, you likely wont keep.

Habits are creating a system to get to your goals. So by refining the process you use to achieve your desired result, you will be able to achieve that result over and over again. A well oiled system makes long term change simple, stress free and automatic.

Stress free. Automatic. Natural. Sound good?

We thought so.

In this post, we will give you a taste of what changing your habits looks like, but this is just the beginning on the journey of long term change.

When it comes to giving advice on habits, we went directly to the source and took away a few strategies from the habit expert James Clear, author of Atomic Habits.

In the book Clear talks about two important concepts: The Habit Loop and The Four Laws of Behavior Change.

The Habit Loop

Developed by journalist Charles Duhigg, the habit loop shows the 4 stages of habit so you can see the cause and effect of our behaviors.

Understanding these 4 stages will reveal how to establish good habits and get rid of bad ones.

• Cue: Trigger your brain to start a behavior
• Craving: The motivation behind the behavior
• Response: The action you take (aka the habit)
• Reward: The “thing” achieved (good or bad) after the habit

Here is an example James Clear outlines in this article.

• Cue: You hit a stumbling block on a project at work.
• Craving: You feel stuck and want to relieve your frustration.
• Response: You pull out your phone and check social media.
• Reward: You satisfy your craving to feel relieved. Checking social media becomes associated with feeling stalled at work.

Sound like a habit that might be a little too familiar? When we are honest with our habits and behaviors we can the use the Four Laws of Behavior Change to change bad habits and establish good habits.

Four Laws of Behavior Change

After you have identified habits that you either want to start or break, you can use the framework fo the Four Laws of Behavior change to start changing your habits.

Clear breaks this down into two categories, creating good habits and breaking bad habits. Below is his framework for each:

Creating a Good Habit

• Make it obvious. 
• Make it attractive. 
• Make it easy. 
• Make it satisfying. 

Breaking a Bad Habit

• Make it invisible. 
• Make it unattractive. 
• Make it difficult. 
• Make it unsatisfying. 

To make this stick, we recommend listening to the conversation between  Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and James Clear.

Podcast: Feel Better Live More: How to build good habits and break bad ones with James Clear

What is a habit you want to break or start?