There are many ways to automate good lifelong habits. However, these are a few of the most effective techniques that can help you translate your daily routines into daily life-transforming habits. Through these tips, you can create habits that will last a lifetime. These ideas are extracts from the book Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Sit up and enjoy the ride.
Habit Checklist
A checklist details all the specific tasks you want to perform for the day, week, or whichever time period you have cut out for yourself. It helps you to structure essential activities in your life as seamlessly as possible.
In this case, you can use a checklist to create a list of habits you want to incorporate into your daily routine.
Why is this effective?
Habit checklists help you to have a constant reminder of the things you need to do. This is important because as you repeat a behavior, you start to habitualize it until it becomes automatic.
To start a habit checklist, brainstorm a list of habits you want to start doing. Then, create a list. Make sure the list is in plain sight so that you are visually reminded to follow it.
Habit Stacking
Have you ever seen a stack of books in a library? Organizations like that make it easier to carry more books in a short period of time it quickens your ability to do more in less time.
Similar to habits, you can hook your existing habits to a new habit you want to design into your life.
This is where habit stacking becomes relevant.
Habit stacking is a method of linking an old existing habit to a new one so that you can make it more obvious.
For example, if you want to develop the habit of reading, use your habit of meditating for example to create a connection. So, it goes like this, if I meditate for 2 – 5 minutes, I will read one page of a book I want. Simple strategy but effective at creating new life-long habits.
Temptation Bundling
The best technique for truly fixing a habit in your daily life is to link it with something you always want to do. For instance, if you love to take walks, sync it with the habit of reading. This is what it means to apply temptation bundling.
Temptation bundling simply means linking a habit you want to do to a habit you want to incorporate into your life.
Prime Your Environment
No matter the goal you want to achieve, you have to make it easy to execute.
What do I mean?
If you want to drink more water, you have to make it easy on yourself and place your water bottle either in your bag or any way you might easily see it.
Creating and designing an environment that makes a habit effortless is the key to lifetime habits.
Successful joggers like David Goggins gained the ability to run every day not through willpower alone. He makes the habit of jogging easy to do by making his environment suitable for the behavior to get in motion.
The Two-Minute Rule
The two-minute rule is a simple strategy discussed by James Clear in his book Atomic Habits. It helps you to reduce a habit to the point where it becomes impossible not to start.
Most people are overwhelmed when they start thinking about starting a habit. For example, when the thought of exercise comes to mind, people feel stressed. They start thinking of all the strenuous movements they have to do. It stops them in their tracks. They end up going about their day without even doing one squat, jumping jack, or a single push-up. Although exercising might alleviate the stress, they can’t seem to bring themselves to it.
That is where shrinking a behavior to the bare minimum becomes imperative. For instance, meditating for 20 minutes becomes sitting and taking notice of your breath for 2 minutes.
What Next
Use these simple techniques to build lifelong habits that make you smarter every day and improve your life exponentially.
