How To Change Your Habits And Make Them Consolidate

Habits are those actions that we carry out in our daily lives automatically. To better understand how they work, two realities must be taken into account. On the one hand, habits are our second DNA, since our identity is “what we are” plus the habits we have. On the other hand, we must accept that it is usually not difficult for people to change the actions to which we are accustomed.

In fact, it is very difficult to consolidate habits such as playing sports, having more positive reactions, improving one’s temperament, maintaining bedtimes and getting up, etc. It’s difficult to change these types of habits by oneself, so it is important to have someone who helps us face change, whether it is a friend, our partner or a mentor.

The difficulty of changing habits lies in our brain, specifically, in the neural pathways. The good news is that, although it is difficult, today we know with certainty that yes we can make changes in our lives and consolidate them in the form of habits or even rituals, the advantage of which is that they do not require external motivation to be completed. The key to achieving this is the brain’s neuroplasticity, that is, the brain’s ability to change and create new neural pathways.

If you want to know more about how habits work, in this article you will find information about what a habit is and how it is acquired.

What to do if I want to change and incorporate a new habit into my life? We see it below step by step:

1. Convince yourself that you can change, even that requires a lot of effort. According to the research work of Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck, collected in her book The New Psychology of Successone of the keys to success in changing habits is knowing that you can change.
2. Make changes that are easy to incorporate into your life: Try to make them reasonable and as realistic as possible.
3. Be constant: the brain must receive a new indication and, initially, it will resist, which can cause discomfort. Therefore, if you want to change habits, it is important not to stop insisting until the brain gets used to them.

Which people manage to make significant changes in their lives? Those that incorporate habits into personal motivation. People who fail when trying to change aspects of their lives are those who cede all responsibility to motivation. Motivation is the main enemy for change, as it does not work for a long time. All of this is aligned with the 3R theory of coaching to face changes: reminders, repetitions and rituals.

Is there any trick to acquiring good habits? Establishing them from scratch is difficult, so below we propose some ideas to start having good habits:

• Link the new habit to one that is already established: For example, if you want to incorporate the routine of doing a healthy physical activity every day, such as doing push-ups, you can associate it with the habit of brushing your teeth, something that does not cost you effort and that you do always. So, right after you finish brushing your teeth, do 10 push-ups.
• Link the new habit to a primary need: Continuing with the previous example, if you want to start exercising and you don’t know how to do it, try doing it right after finishing an action for which you don’t have to find a time, it just happens, like urinating. This way, right after you finish urinating, you automatically do the 10 push-ups.

If you are unsure about how to make habit changes stick, here is what we show you. how to do it step by step:

1. Consciously assume that you can achieve it.
2. Prepare to make a significant effort, be constant.
3. Define a reasonable habit change that fits our identity.
4. Execute the habit change right after another one that you have very consolidated, ideally one that is automatic and timeless.

How long does it take to change habits?

How long does it take to create a habit? There is much written about this. Prestigious sources of information say that 21 days is enough, although other sources speak of 30 days or even more than 200 days. Nothing is exact because in reality, depends on the difficulty of the habit and the frequency with which you want to establish it. Doing ten push-ups once a day is not the same as five times. In this article we tell you how adaptation to change works according to psychology.

In the best-seller “Atomic habits” by author James Clear the following is mentioned: “Value highly the small changes that we manage to consolidate, do not waste the fact of being able to change something, even if it is very little.” It is common to have the tendency to think that if we do not achieve a great achievement, it has no value. That’s not true, well the small achievements They have extraordinary value because they create new neural pathways that allow us to grow.

Pat Riley, probably the best basketball coach in NBA history and former coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, when he joined the team, it was a long way from the Boston Celtics. As a coach he managed to reverse the situation by improving 1% each week in the four most relevant aspects of the game. The weekly improvement was negligible, but the end result was extraordinary.

Next, we leave you with a video to go deeper into how to change habits and consolidate them with tricks to increase willpower.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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