Building new habits can be hard, but sticking to them is a whole new story. In many cases it is not only about your levels of motivation and willpower. The habit-building process is complicated, and it all comes down to tiny impulses in your brain transmitting information between different functional parts. Luckily, you don’t need to be a neuroscientist to learn the mechanism behind habits and make them work for you. For the start, check out the top 5 tips that we have compiled for you below!
1. Stack your habits
The number one tip is to attach your recent habit to an old one. Every individual has some kind of repeating patterns incorporated into their daily routine. Linking new habits to the existing patterns is a great place to start! Take your time to think of habits that fit well together. Add a quick meditation after your relaxing cup of tea in the evening, or do some stretching while you are waiting for you bus on the way to work.
2. Start small
You should not burden yourself with extreme, tiring habits. Take a small start and incorporate simple tasks into your routine. Over time, you can increase the complexity and frequency of your habits. This way, you will be motivated to do more and better every time, while keeping your workload realistic. Can’t find time to exercise every day? Set a goal of exercising once a week. Can’t make yourself read consistently? Try reading for 10 minutes a day.
3. Break habits into chunks as you build up
Some habits are easier to handle when broken down into smaller pieces, like studying. Tedious and complicated activities, such as learning and memorising tend to challenge your concentration, willpower, ability to focus, critical thinking etc. As your brain gets tired, your overall productivity decreases, especially if you are not used to studying for long hours. A much more efficient way to get going is to study in shorter intervals while taking breaks in between.
4. Be consistent
If you walk the same forest path every day, over time you will notice it getting wider. The same applies to habits, just that instead of forest paths you have neural connections in your brain. You don’t need to exercise each and every habit daily, but instead make up a schedule and stick to it. Let it be once or twice a week, but consistently - even the tiniest contributions over time sum up to a significant improvement when repeated regularly.
5. Use a habit tracking app
Keeping an endless list of to-do’s in your head is hard, so you might want to put it down on paper - digitally or physically. Not only does it clear your mind, but also gives you an overview of your goals and progress on them. You might also like using a habit tracking app, which is always on your phone and has all your habits easily accessible to you whenever you need them. At the same time, your statistics will help to keep you motivated by showing you how far you have come!
How can Avocation help create new habits?
You say a perfect habit tracker app doesn’t exist? We hope to prove you wrong!
We have designed Avocation with one goal in mind - to help people around the world to build habits more efficiently, while avoiding the pressure of streaks and frustration of breaking them. We believe, that improving yourself can be fun if you do it right! We made sure to incorporate the above tips directly into the app:
- You can create habits and split them into chunks by selecting your daily goal.
- What about consistency? Schedule your habits daily or weekly and get a reminder to not forget about any of them.
- Keeping an overview of all your habits helps you to develop a perfectly stacked routine.
- Now to the fun part: in Avocation app you can grow a little virtual plant. Just like with your habits, you start small and enhance over time!
- More tips in the app - we have a whole learning section with lessons on science behind habits. See you there!
