The secret to building new habits: Make it so simple that it is easy to apply

According to Duke University researchers, habits account for about 40% of our behaviors every day.

Therefore, understanding how to form new habits (and how those habits are built up) is essential to help you make positive changes in your health, happiness and life. friend.

However, when searching on Google, you receive a series of results with methods of building habits that are not easy to apply. So how to solve this problem? The way I propose it is to divide your big goals into small habits.

1. Start with a very small habit

Make it so easy you can't say no - Leo Babauta.

Make it so easy that you can't say "no".

Most people, when trying to keep up with a new habit, often say things like "I need more motivation" or "I wish I had a great will like you".

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This is a wrong approach. Scientific research shows that willpower is like muscle. The spirit will be tired when you use it all day. Another way to imagine this is to think that your motivation sometimes goes up, sometimes down. It will increase or decrease and professor BJ Fogg from Stanford University calls this phenomenon "motivational wave".

In this case, solve the problem by choosing a new routine that is easy enough that you don't need too much motivation to do it. Instead of starting with 50 breaths a day, start with only 5. Instead of trying to meditate for 10 minutes, start by spending 1 minute a day without doing, not thinking, not worrying about anything - simply letting your mind be calm and comfortable.

2. Increase your habits with very small steps

Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; trong khi gặp lỗi, không phải là một lỗi trong câu lệnh, repeated every day - Jim John.

Success is a few simple principles, daily practice; while failure is simply a few mistakes in training, repeated every day.

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Small habits, big results. Every day, you only need to achieve 1% of progress, the level of improvement after a while will increase dramatically. As in the image above, you can see the power of 1% better than yesterday and 1% worse than yesterday there is a clear difference.

Instead of trying to do something great from the beginning, start with small steps and gradually improve. In the process of implementation, your willpower and motivation will also increase, making it easier to practice with a new habit.

3. Just like building, break the routine into many small parts to accomplish

If you continue to add 1% every day, then you will find yourself much better in just two or three months. This is important to keep your habits in a reasonable manner, from which you can maintain momentum and make them as easy as possible.

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Want to build a 20 minute meditation routine? First, divide it into two 10-minute sections. Do you want to practice the habit of sniffing 50 pieces a day? Then break it down into 5 for each exercise, will you find it simpler to implement?

4. When you miss it, come back quickly

The best way to improve your self-control is to see how and why do you lose control - Kelly McGonigal.

The best way to improve your self-control is to track how and why you lose control.

Even those who are able to build habits quickly also make mistakes, common errors like others. However, the difference is that they always return to their progress as quickly as possible.

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Research shows that missing your habit once, no matter when it happens, doesn't have a big impact on your long-term progress. Instead of trying to be perfect, give up the "all or nothing" mentality .

You should not expect to fail, but you should plan for failure. Take a moment to consider what will stop it from hindering your new habit. What can happen during training? What daily emergencies are likely to make you unable to move forward? How can you plan your training without being affected by these problems? Or, at the very least, how can you quickly regain your spirit and keep abreast of that habit?

You only need a suitable plan, no need for perfection. Focus on building your own identity by becoming a person who never misses a habit of coming a second time.

5. Be patient, stick with the speed you can maintain

Learning how to be patient is probably the most important skill of all. You can make amazing progress if you are persistent and patient.

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If you gradually increase the amount of weight, you'll probably go slower than you think. If you add daily sales calls in your business strategy, you should probably start less than you expect to be able to handle. Patience is everything. Do things that you can maintain.

Reduce the difficulty of habits to the maximum so that it no longer feels too difficult to make or too many obstacles. If you are patient and continue to increase your habits from small steps right from the start, then one day, that habit will become an "obvious" part of your daily life.