How to create habits that stick? Simple guide

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

-Aristotle

I have recently finished reading a book called The Power of Habits by Charles Duhhig, I am sure so many of you have read it or at least heard about it. My interest in regards to habits has started a few years ago, especially when I wanted to get rid of some bad ones. I always found it very hard to eradicate negative habits. And I would blame myself because I lacked willpower. For instance, I would start a diet, a very strict one, no sugars, no carbs, and no fast food. You know what happened after that? Big failure! It wasn't sustainable, I lost weight for the first couple weeks but got them back when I couldn't continue with the diet.
Many people when asked about working out or exercising, tend to find all sorts of excuses to explain why they aren't taking it seriously. From I work 8 hours a day and I commute for about 2 hours every day, I have no time to workout! Or the I have kids excuse and so many more.
Just a disclaimer here, changing or creating new habits is not that easy (I wish though) there is no secret formula for everybody, we are different, and habits are also different. Giving up cigarettes is different from biting your nails.
So why it is important to create good habits? Well if you don't already know, habits make up 40% of our actions, we do them every day without thinking. Your habits determine who you are today! How successful or unsuccessful you are, how healthy or unhealthy you are, how happy or unhappy you are! Are all the outcome of your daily habits.
Another final disclaimer here and I will start giving the hacks. Changing a habit will not happen overnight! it is a long process, you need to be patient and persistent. Okay, let's dig in.

      1. Identify the habits that you want to add or eliminate from your life
Take time to ask yourself what are some ideal habits that you want to add to your life and what are the ones that you want to get rid of., and why you want to do that? By understanding why you want to create or eliminate the habits, you are more mindful about it, and you are more likely to stick with it.

      2. Start small 

Once you have identified the habits that you want to create, you should pick one important habit for you and start with it. Building a habit should be slow and easy. let's say you want to build the habit of running 4 times a week for one hour. Start to run for 15 mins twice a week, start small and then eventually build up to 4 times a week for one hour. Don't let your ambition of building 4 habits at a time overwhelm you. Do not pressure yourself by doing everything every day. 

      3. Focus on one keystone habit

As we said previously, making so much change at once would make it impossible for any of it to stick. Some habits have the power to start a series of changes in our lives. To give you more insight here, every keystone habit can be situated into one of the following categories: it's either a physical habit, an intellectual habit, an emotional habit or a spiritual one. Take exercise as an example for a physical keystone habit, if you stick to the habit of working out it will trigger other changes, it will regulate your hormones, you will look better and feel better, and soon enough you will start eating healthy, quit smoking... 

     4.  Make it visual: Make it fun

A habit follows always these 4 steps: cue, craving, routine, reward.To start a habit, these 4 steps have to be fulfilled. To build a habit that sticks, you need to have a visual cue. Let me give you an example here. We will take the habit of reading 30 pages every day. To make it fun and easy, put a book on your nightstand and first thing in the morning grab the book and read the 30 pages. That's a visual cue. It is one of the first things you will see in the morning, it is the first task you accomplish it will give you more motivation to keep going. 

     5. Build an identity around your habits

Identify your self as the type of person that does this habit. Change your belief. It is not about those 5 kilos that you wanna lose, it should be about becoming healthier and strong. Decide what type of person do you wanna be, are you the person who loses 5kilos or are you the person who walks 10,000 steps daily? Stop worrying about the results and start building an identity around your habits. 

     6. Don't break the chain

It is a strategy used by the famous comedian Seinfeld, and it goes like this: If you want to form good habits you need to perform each day and each time you accomplish the task you need to draw an X on a calendar. Pick a task that is very important to you but also simple so that you can carry on with. Don't break the chain and be consistent and follow your progression by drawing the X on your calendar. I am using this technique for writing, commit my self to write 1000 words articles twice a week. To master a skill you should be consistent.

Last but not least, be gentle with yourself, creating habits take time so be patient. You may fall off, it's ok it happens, pick yourself up and try again. I wish you dedication and persistence to create your new habits and to build your new lifestyle.