Nature of Habit Formation

We all humans are habitual creatures. As a kid you have definitely experienced how our parents forced us to brush our teeth even if we were so reluctant to it. Personally I use to hate it because we were CONSCIOUS about it and just didn’t want to do it. But our parents persisted till a point where we call it became a “Habit” which means we DO things SUBCONCIOUSLY.

So I think we can all agree that humans are habitual creatures. We feel comfortable when we repeatedly do things at a subconscious level.

But what does a habit means? A repeating behavior performed over and over again.

What if I tell you , you can build self-confidence and accountability by just building a new habit. Do you want to know how? I will answer it later in the blog.

Before that lets understand that to build a new habit we need to try new things. We only try new things when we trust other’s word who has credibility in our or when we see someone following that habit and we are able to create a strong connection with that activity or we see someone achieving something which we desire and it motivates us to follow that habit which led that person to that achievement.

But now as grownups why does it feel so damn hard? There are quite a few reasons to it:

The reason children develop any habit faster is that they are heavily influenced by the people who they trust because of which they develop the habit easily. Also their parents hold themselves accountable so that the child will stick to the activity till it becomes a habit.

But as an adult, we don’t get influenced that heavily by others as we are more cautious to trust anybody for that matter. Also we have to be accountable to ourselves to persist long enough to make that daily activity into habit. This is the reason why it is so easy for a child to develop a habit but for an adult it’s a struggle.

Why do I need to learn it’s Phases and How can I learn Habit Formation?

As a student, we learn the best if there is least uncertainty. So if you know what kind of phases we go through this habit formation you can actually feel more certain and secure which makes it more likely to stick to it. Do you agree? Also if you perform the small activity which I have explained below those phases, you will definitely understand the concept in an interesting manner.

Phases of Habit Formation

No matter which habit you want to built , these are the phases through which anyone will go through.

1. The first one is UNINFORMED OPTIMISM - As I said when we start to try out new things , we feel subconsciously optimistic about it. Remember your first day to high school or when you make a new friend, when you are so excited to learn something new and you follow it daily. We do feel really optimistic in the initial period of the habit. The phase varies from 1 to 5 days.
2. Second one is INFORMED PESSIMISM- Have you ever joined a gym membership for a month and after couple of days , you start thinking “ fuck !! this is hard, I don’t think I can workout anymore”. Trust me even I have felt it. But my point is here you have consciously put a thought in your mind that this is too difficult and non-sustainable. You have informed yourself towards pessimism. The phase varies from 1 to 5 days.
3. Third one is VALLEY OF UNCERTAINTY- This is the region which varies for each individual. This is the period when most of the people will quit. There are days when we persist with the habit and somedays we don’t. At this point everybody questions themselves regarding the habit and can they continue it. Somedays you will feel mundane while somedays you are very excited to perform the same activity. This period is the longest and obviously UNCERTAIN.
4. Fourth one is INFORMED OPTIMISM- If you have reached this stage, you know that you have confidence that you have been following the habit for certain number of days and have experienced its benefits which acts as motivation to follow it consistently every single day. You develop a mindset wherein you enjoy the process of performing the activity than just dreaming about the outcome.
5. The final stage is SUCCESS- This the stage where we all subconsciously do the activity without thinking about it during the course of the activity. This is similar to achieving success in any field. Still don’t believe it?

TRY THIS:

Lets assume you can perform 30 pushups in a minute. Set a timer for a minute and start cranking out reps. I am damn sure that you will encounter the same 5 stages which I am talking about. Come on give it a try right now!

Now lets dive into self- confidence and accountability part as I have promised earlier.

Self- confidence comes from competence. When we achieve something related to a particular field , we can use that excellence in other field as a belief mechanism to support us . If we can create a new habit and stick to it then we can develop competence which leads to self- confidence.

Accountability is act of holding yourself responsible for any action in your life. It can be created only if we trust ourselves. We can develop it by, well again sticking to a habit which in turn develops self-trust and it leads to accountability.

To conclude, we should know the importance of developing even a small habit like waking up at a particular time which would develop your confidence , self- belief and you will lead more confident , stable and happy life.

So what habit are you going to develop from today?