Knowing How to Form a Habit is Important (According to Aristotle)
One of my favorite quotes is “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” In fact, combine that quote with one by W.H. Auden (“Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.”) and you get the name of this website.
Routines and habits are the key to consistency, which is the key to achieving goals. So knowing how to form a habit is important.
I’m very vocal about my dislike for the idea of “just do it” and the exercise industry idea that exercise has to suck.
Whether your habit formation is focused on exercise or anything else (business, writing, friendships, relationships etc.), excellence and success are really just the result of your deeply ingrained habits. Understanding the psychology of habits can help you change them.
You don’t need to lift for 4 hours or write 200 pages every day. If you want to use habits to change your life your ability to always do something, even something small, will move you forward.
If you want to know how to form habits, it’s important that you understand what they actually are. And what they are not. Habits are not just “something you do every day.”
When most people think of a habit, they think “something you do everyday.” If you were trying to start an exercise “habit,” you might set the goal of doing a certain number of sets/reps, running a certain distance, or exercising for a certain amount of time each day.
If you were trying to start a writing habit you might target a certain number of pages or words per day. If you were trying to network more you might send a target number of emails per day.
It’s true that habits are frequently recurring behaviors, and an “X per day” approach isn’t automatically bad, but just doing something regularly is not enough to form a habit.
Because that isn’t how the psychology of habits works.
Do you ever feel like you have to “make yourself” do something? Do you ever put off your daily activity until later in the day, even if you do eventually get it done? That’s how you know you don’t actually have a habit—you have a responsibility, a nagging task.
The psychology of habits can fix that.
Routines and habits are the key to consistency, which is the key to achieving goals. So knowing how to form a habit is important.
I’m very vocal about my dislike for the idea of “just do it” and the exercise industry idea that exercise has to suck.
Whether your habit formation is focused on exercise or anything else (business, writing, friendships, relationships etc.), excellence and success are really just the result of your deeply ingrained habits. Understanding the psychology of habits can help you change them.
You don’t need to lift for 4 hours or write 200 pages every day. If you want to use habits to change your life your ability to always do something, even something small, will move you forward.
If you want to know how to form habits, it’s important that you understand what they actually are. And what they are not. Habits are not just “something you do every day.”
When most people think of a habit, they think “something you do everyday.” If you were trying to start an exercise “habit,” you might set the goal of doing a certain number of sets/reps, running a certain distance, or exercising for a certain amount of time each day.
If you were trying to start a writing habit you might target a certain number of pages or words per day. If you were trying to network more you might send a target number of emails per day.
It’s true that habits are frequently recurring behaviors, and an “X per day” approach isn’t automatically bad, but just doing something regularly is not enough to form a habit.
Because that isn’t how the psychology of habits works.
Do you ever feel like you have to “make yourself” do something? Do you ever put off your daily activity until later in the day, even if you do eventually get it done? That’s how you know you don’t actually have a habit—you have a responsibility, a nagging task.
The psychology of habits can fix that.
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