Mind the Habit

When I started building habits intentionally, I interpreted them as GOALS to achieve, carried away also by the so common sayings about the number of days necessary to build a habit: 21, 30 or 66, depending on which article/book I read.

Dr P. Lally study, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology in 2009 found that, on average, it took participants about 66 days of consistent behaviour to establish a new habit. The range was from 18 to 254 days.

Having started my personal growth journey following the concepts I learned from The One Thing book, I began using the 66-day challenge sheet to record the progress in building habits, going from one habit to the next as soon as I reached the 66th day…

I soon realised that what I had just completed was not the building of a permanent habit, but the completion of a task, every day, for 66 days in a row, similar to a work-out.

Reaching the finishing line made me feel successful, but most of the times I didn’t feel the habit in me!

What I just described was an Immediate goal-based habit: a habit that gives you a specific outcome each and every time you do it. But the habit was not the one I wanted to build, it was the action of filling in the 66-day challenge sheet.

It was only when I wanted to live a healthier life (by changing my relationship with nature, through earthing and cold exposure), to improve my diet (by cutting down in sugar and highly processed foods, and by embracing time restricted eating), to get fitter (by exercising daily) and to improve my relationship with myself and consequently with others (by meditating and practicing gratitude), that I understood that only once you feel a certain way, you keep repeating a particular behaviour to the point that it becomes a habit.

It becomes a habit not because it’s a goal, but because the way it makes you feel and the path it keeps you on!

These are Identity-based habits: the ones you build when you keep in mind the path you want to follow to grow.

Don’t think about the daunting process, but focus on the extraordinary results which are waiting for you!

A behaviour which is not in line with your identity will not last!

Be a fit person

Be someone who eats healthy food

Be mindful

Be someone who challenges himself

Be ………………………………………………

Build your identity and be who you will to be

I completely agree with Dr. BJ Fogg (founder of the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University) who states, in his MUST-READ book Tiny Habits https://amzn.to/47J3LjL, that emotion is a primary factor when you want to build a new habit.

He says that with a strong positive emotion connected to the behaviour, you can build a habit very quickly, in just a few days.

That confirmed what I had experienced when I decided to give up added sugar, starting from no sugar in my coffee.

I always had a sweet tooth (who doesn’t?), and I was drinking my coffee, at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with sugar and 2-3 cookies (dipping them into the coffee). Then, after reading about the dangers of sugar (as if I didn’t already know it) I just decided to give up cookies with coffee, stopping immediately the bad habit.

You may think: what about the sugar in the coffee and the evening caffeine shot? They both became history very soon after the cookies!

Strong emotions (like not wanting to hurt myself by eating sugar) strengthen your willpower and motivation to perform a specific behaviour, making the building of a new habit easier.

When you believe and like your identity, what better emotion do you need?