Build Habits That Stick By Anchoring Them To Your Old Habits

Build Habits That Stick By Anchoring Them To Your Old Habits

Creating good, lasting habits isn’t easy, especially if you think you have a limited supply of willpower. Give yourself a better chance of building the habits you want by tying them to the habits you’re already doing automatically.

Marshall Kirkpatric, founder of Littlebird, shares on the Lift blog what he learned from behaviour change expert Dr. BJ Fogg:

I learned from Dr. BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits program that a good approach to picking up new habits is to 1) make them small 2) tie them to an anchor habit you’ve already got (you’re old habit becomes a trigger) and 3) celebrate when you do them.

So every morning after I make coffee, I get out my vitamins, then I open up the Harvard Business Review mobile app and read their Management Tip of the Day, then I check off those two habits on Lift. Then I open up my mobile flashcard app and use frequent recall to assimilate the lessons I’m learning in life (like BJ Fogg’s 3 steps to picking up new habits) while I stretch in my living room and drink coffee. Then I check off flashcards and stretching.

So, similarly, you could keep a bottle of sunscreen by your coffeemaker to remember to protect your skin while the coffee is brewing or use your evening news watching ritual as a trigger to floss daily. It’s the small steps that make the biggest difference when building the right habits.

Hack the Science of behaviour Change: Productivity Tip from Marshall Kirkpatrick [Lift]

Picture: theps.net/Flickr


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