Hi guys and if you have stumbled upon this post while digging through the internet rabbit hole, you have come to the right place! Now, how many of us think about starting something new. Just this New Year, I promised myself that I would run every week, watch less TV and read more books. However, as you would have imagined, I didn’t follow through on my promises. That seems little counter-intuitive given the title of the post.

Well, this post is not to brag about how I did not accomplish my goals. It is to explain how I finally learnt methods, ways and structures that helped me make new habits that actually stuck!

Everyone has these thoughts, eating healthy, reading more books, starting your old hobbies again and the list honestly doesn’t end here.

So here are some things you need to know first:

I am not behavioral psychologist or lifestyle coach or any other random person on the internet who has mastered the art of habit making. But I am someone who thoroughly researched the art of habit making and learnt a butt load of shit. I organized those thoughts in order to make them fit my lifestyle and goals. In this post you will learn first to create a habit and then ways to fit it into your routine.

I can’t guarantee if you read this post you can 100% successfully form new habits. However, I am sure in your journey to learn to make new habits and keep doing them, this post would come a long way!

To make anything a habit you need to repeat it enough times for your brain to register and do it on autopilot. Atomic Habits by James Clear is an amazing book for you to start understanding the concept of Habit and how to successfully perform it everyday. In this book, the author stresses upon starting small. When you start with the smallest of the things, it is easier for you to do it everyday until you are comfortable enough to do it without any prompts.

• One of the good examples I can draw upon from the book is going to gym. Let’s say you have decided to get fit. How you approach this habit makes all the difference.
• You can go on out and start with the hardest of the exercises and work out for 2 hours a day or you can start small by going to the gym everyday for a week but not doing anything significant.
• If you develop the habit of showing up to the gym everyday, the habit of exercising follows. When you fail to go to the gym you also automatically fail to get fit. Therefore, you have to divide your habit into practicable pieces and just start doing it!

To really help you follow through on your said new habits, you can also create an accountability partner. It can be one of your closest friends, family or your partner.

In addition to breaking down your habits into sizable acts, you also need to track those acts. In my experience it is best to use a pen and paper to just keep checking off the boxes every time you complete those sizable acts. Overtime it compounds and becomes something you really didn’t expect in the beginning. To give you an example, if you run everyday for 10 minutes for a week, you get the confidence and stamina to do it 15 minutes from the next day. Therefore, you keep doing something over time you can actually run a marathon.

This is precisely why we need to break your habits into sizable acts that contribute to your final goal overtime.

Now, every habit takes time to stick. It is not going to happen in a week or a month or two. It totally depends on what the habit is and if it is something you already do but not frequent enough or something entirely new.

When you are starting out, there is no easy way! It is not dependent on how much will-power you have or not. It is about commitment. Are you following through your initial goal or not.

• You need to make your habits align with your natural nature or pre-existing habits or lifestyle.
• This is very quintessential because to follow something very opposite to your base personality is very hard!

A very important step in the process of creating new habits is not the habit itself, the system or the structure that supports and enables you to complete your sizable acts consistently. So, how do you build a new good system?

It starts with your surroundings. If your goal is to reduce weight and eat healthy then don’t spend money on junk food and snacks. Make it harder for you to actually break your habit. It also again falls back to the point of having an accountability partner.

You can make the habits that you want to create easier to follow. For example, you plan to go to gym everyday. To make sure that you go, you can pack your gym bag the night before and take with you to work. That way, on your way back home you go to gym. On the contrary if you come back home to pack your gym bag and actually go to gym, it takes effort. Make your habits easier to achieve.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

To summarize everything, there are three things you need to really remember when you are creating a new habit.

Break your habit into sizable actions that you can easily accomplish. Start with small things over time you compound it to be an effective and successful habit. It changes a little bit of your identity and speaks for who you are!

Create an environment or circumstances that can help you easily accomplish your habit without going out of your way.

Track your progress using some sort of habit tracker, though I highly suggest a simple sheet of paper and pen. This motivates you to keep doing what you are doing!

Finally, if you fail to do something one day, don’t let it carry over to the other. I really like, Matt D’Avella’s 2 day rule. It is a back up strategy for those days when you can’t do it. If you miss doing your task two days in a row then know that you are falling through. Instead re-focus yourself and keep going. This 2-day rule also allows you brief moments of respite when you have to spend time with your family or go out with friends.

It is hard and tough to build a habit that lasts. However, if you make the process enjoyable you can keep doing it forever!

Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad One

If you want to read more material on how to successfully create a new habit that actually sticks? I highly suggest reading books like, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg and also The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

In addition to these books, you can also get a lot of ideas through these YouTube videos, Matt D’Avella’, Thomas Frank and Ali Abdal.