Creating Good Habits (Stick to the Gameplan)
How to Create New Habits & Behavioural Changes
One of the most effective methods to achieve goals is adherence to the program. If you put in a positive and efficient effort, regularly, over a long period of time, you will undoubtedly make great strides towards your desired outcome. If you want to get stronger, adhere to your gym program. If you want to improve your mental health, adhere to the psychological and mindful activities that help you. If you want to improve your body composition, ADHERE to your diet or as I prefer to call it, your healthy eating habits! Adherence is the key, but why is this so hard for some people?.. a lot of people? If we know the benefits of sticking to the plan, why do so many people stray and why is it so difficult to create those long-lasting, good habits? Hopefully this article will shine some light on the issues and help you with these mental blockades.
Before you start designing a program, it’s important to understand the process required to create a new habit. The 4 steps are: Cue > Craving > Response > Reward (Lennon & Clear, 2018).
Cue: Something that grabs your attention (Noticing you’re feeling unfit doing everyday tasks).
Craving: Having the motivation to make a change. This could also be referred to as a trigger (Wanting to get fitter and stronger).
Response: Having the ability to make a change or take steps in the right direction (There is a gym close by and you can afford a membership). At this point, it’s important to note that the Cue, Craving and Response are required to be present at the same time to initiate a change.
Reward: Positive reinforcement after “responding” which should have short, mid and long-term implications (Feeling great from the endorphins post training, noticing some physical changes in the mirror and achieving long term strength & fitness goals). Research has shown that a reward system is essential to solidify new routines and habits. Unfortunately, this can be a double-edged sword as many negative habits give an immediate reward. These should try to be prevented when possible.
Once there is an understanding of the 4-step process, we can investigate some strategies to help improve adherence (Hollingworth & Barker, 2017).
Stable and Supportive Environment: This is an extremely important strategy. Try to surround yourself with like-minded people and create/join a supportive community. This will give you the chance to lean on others for help when needed.
Leverage your Situation: Utilize any opportunity to incite a change such as a new relationship, a new job or any other major life change. You can also build off of existing habits, for example; If Sunday is food shopping day, make the vegetable isle your first destination.
Make it Easy: While there can be many barriers, there are 3 which occur quite commonly.
Too many options: Try to limit your total decision making.
Too many steps: Keep your new routines simple.
Social & Situational Cues: Social groups can often make people feel ostracized when an individual’s new habits clash with the group. If this is the case, an “Evaluation” stage is sometimes added to the process, resulting in an individual’s “Trigger” being negated (Klöckner & Matthies, 2004).
Practice and Repeat: Repetition is KING! Take every opportunity to can to practice and repeat your new habits until they become your ordinary behaviors.
Build Meaningful Motivation: Create cues which emphasis the personal meaning of your new habits. If it’s truly important to you, these cues should help develop your intrinsic motivation.
Hopefully after some self-analysis, these steps and strategies will help you create new habits and behavioral changes. If you are having trouble sticking to your plan, go through the checklist above and see where the process is breaking down. Make a change, commit to it and better yourself!
References:
Hollingworth, C., & Barker, L. (2017). How to use behavioural science to build new habits. WARC.
Klöckner, C. A., & Matthies, E. (2004). How habits interfere with norm-directed behaviour: A normative decision-making model for travel mode choice. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 24(3), 319-327.
Lennon, D., & Clear, J. (2018) https://sigmanutrition.com/podcasts/. SNR #249: James Clear. Habits & Behaviour Change
Written by Nevin Mills - The Strength Institute of Western Australia
