1. Anchor Your Habits

Anchoring your habits reduces the decision-making involved in maintaining your new habits.

Also, when you have a specific time and place for your habit, it becomes a part of your daily routine, and you are less likely to forget or skip it.

So, James Clear’s idea is simple:

Instead of building a new habit from scratch, piggyback it onto an existing one.

For example, if you want to meditate every morning, you might anchor it with your existing morning routine. Sit down to meditate as soon as you get out of bed.

By linking the new behavior to an existing habit, you increase your chances of sticking to it — for a long time.

2. Find a Strong WHY

According to renowned motivational speaker Simon Sinek, humans are motivated to act for one of three reasons:

• What? (the task itself)
• How? (our method or approach)
• Why?

The first two “motivators” are relatively easy to identify.

For example, if someone is mowing the lawn, the task is obvious, and the approach is generally the same each time.

But the third motivator — why you do something — is often more difficult to pinpoint. In fact, many people never stop to think about why they’re doing something, and they go through the motions day after day.

Result?

Boredom ➤ Fatigue ➤ Quitting

So, understanding your motivations is essential for building better habits that stick.

One way to find your “why” is to ask yourself what problem you’re trying to solve with the new habit you want to create.

For example, if you want to exercise regularly, maybe your WHYs are:

• Look slim and trim
• Prove something to others
• Live a healthy lifestyle
• Fit in your favorite clothes
• Prevent obesity and other cardiovascular problems, etc.

However, you can’t find a strong WHY without following trick#3.

3. Recognize Your Cravings

Once you know what you’re craving, you can figure out why.

Are you seeking comfort? Boredom? A way to cope with stress? Low self-esteem?

Once you understand the root cause of your craving, you can develop better coping mechanisms.

For example, it’s possible that you don’t like to binge-watch. But you’re alone, bored, or stressed; that’s why you crave TV as an escape.

Recognize your needs before you find a supply.

4. Identify Your Resistances

In his best-selling book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey talks about the importance of identifying your “resistance.” This is the part of you that doesn’t want to change. The voice in your head says, “I can’t do this” or “It’s too hard.”

Recognizing your resistance is an important step in building a long-lasting habit. Once you know what’s holding you back, you know WHAT to deal with.

Let’s say you want to write every day. Your resistance might tell you that it’s too hard or that you don’t have time.

Or you’re afraid of failing and looking foolish in front of others.

Or you’re worried about being judged by others.

Knowing the problem makes it easier to set realistic goals, build self-confidence, or seek support from others.

Whatever approach you take, the key is to identify your resistance and take action accordingly.

5. Change Your Environment

Old habits can be stubborn, whether smoking, overeating, or spending too much time on the couch.

However, research has shown that changing your environment can be an effective way to break a bad habit.

Let’s take smoking as an example. Remove all cigarettes and ashtrays from your home, and it’ll reduce the temptation to smoke.

Likewise, if you want to eat better, filling your fridge with healthy food options can make it easier to make healthy choices.

In short, changing your environment can help you build better habits. It makes it easier to do the right thing.

6. Set Reminders

Benjamin Gardner, a habit researcher and senior lecturer in psychology at King’s College London, said, “forgetting the habit is a bigger issue than forming a habit.”

A reminder is like a mental trigger that helps you auto-pilot your way to better behavior.

When you set a reminder, you effectively tell your brain, “Hey, this is something important that I need to do.” The result is that you are much more likely actually to do it.

By setting a daily or weekly reminder, you create a trigger that serves three benefits:

• It gives cues to your brain to think about the desired behavior.
• It helps to embed the behavior into your long-term memory.
• You live with a purpose.

For example, if your goal is to eat more vegetables, set a reminder to put a bowl of fruit on your kitchen table or pack a healthy lunch before leaving for work. Or, if you want to save money, set a reminder to leave your credit cards at home when you go shopping.

7. Use Pleasure To Avoid Pain

It’s no secret that avoiding pain is one of our strongest motivators. Whether it’s a pain of a difficult workout or getting out of bed on a cold morning, we constantly look for excuses to avoid discomfort.

However, it turns out that using pleasure to avoid pain can actually be an effective way to build better habits.

Charles Duhigg proposed this theory in his book, “The Power of Habit.” “

The brain craves pleasure. Not goals. Not habits.

So, the key is to introduce a pleasure element in reducing pain when building habits. For example, if you’re trying to eat healthier, you might reward yourself with a delicious dessert once a week.

Or, if you’re trying to exercise more, permit yourself to binge-watch as you exercise.

By linking pleasure to your new habits, you’re more likely to stick to them in the long run

Source: https://betterhumans.pub/12-tiny-tricks-thatll-build-huge-habits-according-to-world-s-smartest-people-d586e310976e