5 Scientific Rules for Making & Breaking Habits!

Dec 29, 2022 57m 24s 11 insights
This episode, hosted by Steven Bartlett, delves into the science of making and breaking habits, particularly New Year's resolutions. It explores the habit loop, the role of stress and willpower, and offers six evidence-based rules to successfully change behavior and achieve goals.
Actionable Insights

1. Cultivate Intrinsic Motivation

Find a powerful, genuinely personal reason for your desired habit change, rather than relying on external rewards. This deep ‘why’ makes the pain of changing less than the pain of staying the same, increasing your commitment.

2. Replace Bad Habits, Don’t Stop

Instead of focusing on merely stopping an unwanted behavior, replace it with a new, positive, action-oriented habit. Your brain is action-oriented, and directly suppressing thoughts about a bad habit often leads to a rebound.

3. Identify and Avoid Habit Cues

Become crystal clear on the specific environmental or contextual cues that trigger your unwanted habits. Awareness empowers you to either avoid these triggers or remove them from your surroundings to break the habit loop.

4. Reduce Stress for Habit Success

Keep your stress levels low, especially during the critical early phase of forming new habits, as stress undermines willpower and the ability to delay gratification. Stressed individuals are more likely to seek immediate dopamine hits from bad habits.

5. Prioritize Foundational Health

Focus on basics like adequate sleep and regular exercise, and incorporate stress reduction techniques such as meditation. These foundations are proven to increase your willpower and drastically improve your chances of cementing new habits.

6. Conserve Willpower with Small Goals

Set small, achievable, and sustainable goals that don’t require major sacrifice, as willpower is a limited resource that gets exhausted with overuse. Overly ambitious or numerous goals deplete willpower, leading to failure and relapse.

7. Leverage Major Life Changes

Capitalize on significant life transitions, like moving to a new city or starting a new job, as a ‘blank canvas’ to establish new habits. These changes naturally remove old environmental cues that keep bad habits in place.

8. Utilize Question-Behavior Effect

Ask yourself clear, binary (yes/no) questions about desired behaviors, especially in writing or on a computer. This creates cognitive dissonance between your ideal and real self, prompting you to align your actions with your intentions.

9. Reward with Healthier Alternatives

Instead of completely depriving yourself of rewards when breaking a habit, find new, healthier, or less addictive ways to reward yourself. This prevents willpower depletion and supports the new habit loop.

10. Don’t Tackle Too Many Habits At Once

Avoid trying to give up every bad habit simultaneously, as this places unsustainable strain on your limited willpower reserves. Focusing on fewer, more manageable changes increases your overall success rate.

11. Set Formal Resolutions

Formally setting a resolution significantly increases your likelihood of achieving a goal compared to merely wanting to change. Research shows resolution makers are more than 10 times as successful in changing behavior.