B ME Bites 9: Transform Your Life with Habit Formation

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This week’s B ME Bites Trivia Question:

Welcome to edition #9 of B ME Bites! Over the past 6 weeks some solid foundations have been laid to help you make the changes you want to make more easily. Now it’s time to start to build on those foundations. How exciting! This week’s edition is going to cover the science behind creating habits.

For this edition, you can choose your own adventure to proceed!:

🎙️ If you prefer to listen, you can listen on your preferred platform.

📺 If you prefer to watch, you can watch on YouTube:

If you prefer to read, proceed from here! 👇

Featured Topic: Unlock the Secret to Lasting Change by Focusing on Habits Over Behaviours

When looking to effect change in life, so often the focus is on changing behaviour which may not be too difficult in the short term, but could be in the long term. A much easier way to get long term change is to focus on changing habits instead. By doing that, over a period of time the habit will become automatic and your behaviour changes long term, without having to continually exert will power.

When creating a new habit, there are 3 phases. The INITIATION phase, the TRAINING phase and the MAINTENANCE phase.

Additionally, habits are comprised of 4 components:

1. The TRIGGER or the CUE

2. Which triggers the DESIRE

3. To BEHAVE in a certain way

4. Which gives you a REWARD

Each component is equally important and it’s possible to either create a habit that serves you or stop a habit that doesn’t, by manipulating one or more of the 4 components in some way.

If you want to stop a dysfunctional habit, you can:

1. Hide the TRIGGER or the CUE

2. Make the DESIRE ugly or undesirable

3. Make it hard to BEHAVE in the undesired way

4. Make the REWARD unsatisfactory

For instance, imagine that you have a habit of checking your social media on your phone every 10 minutes. It’s affecting your productivity and you want to stop it. You could:

1. Hide the TRIGGER or the CUE by turning off all notifications on your devices and putting your phone out of sight when you’re working.

2. Make the DESIRE ugly or undesirable by putting your phone in another room or somewhere where you have to spend time and considerable effort to go and retrieve it when you want it.

3. Make it hard to BEHAVE in the undesired way by turning the data off on your phone when you’re not supposed to be on social media.

4. Make the REWARD unsatisfactory by researching and compiling a list of the negative impacts of undisciplined use of social media

Alternatively, if you want to create a functional habit, you can:

1. Make the TRIGGER or the CUE visible

2. Make the DESIRE attractive

3. Make it easy to BEHAVE in the desired way

4. Make the REWARD satisfying

As an example, if you wanted to create a meditation habit, you could:

1. Make the TRIGGER or the CUE visible by creating a special space for it

2. Make the DESIRE attractive by putting things that you love in the special space that makes you want to spend time there

3. Make it easy to BEHAVE in the desired way by making the first step so small, that there’s no reason to not do it, such as just sitting in the meditation area for 10 seconds

4. Make the REWARD satisfactory by researching and compiling a list of the benefits you will get from regular meditation and displaying it somewhere that you will see it

When working on changing habits, focus on one at a time. It’s important to give yourself permission to start out small (remember the S.T.E.P.S Formula) and layer on the habit over time. There is no step that is too small. Furthermore, attach it to something that you already do, which then becomes the CUE or TRIGGER.

A simple strategy to help wire in a habit quicker, is to perform the habit five times over seven days, creating a chain. Each time you perform the habit, congratulate yourself and celebrate. When your brain associates performing the habit with positive emotions, it wires it in.

This is exactly how I created a meditation habit. I wanted to meditate on a daily basis, but I wasn’t managing to be consistent with it. So I started by creating a beautiful meditation corner. Then I decided that my CUE or TRIGGER would be getting dressed in the morning and that my S.T.E.P.S step would be to start with sitting in my meditation chair for 10 seconds.

When you’re creating a new habit, it’s also helpful to create a sentence around it that you can repeat to yourself like an affirmation. You can do this by filling in the bracketed sections in the following sentence:

“(When) I (blank), I will (blank)”

So my statement was:

“After I get dressed in the morning, I will sit in my meditation chair for 10 seconds.”

That’s it. No expectation to actually do ANY meditation. Just sit in my meditation chair for 10 seconds. So what happened? Well, for the next week, after I got dressed in the morning I would happily go and sit in my meditation chair for 10 seconds. The habit was so small, that there was absolutely no way that I could say no to doing it and this is a critical success key to creating a new habit. The even more awesome thing that happened is that once I sat in my meditation chair, I would always do a small meditation, even if it was only for a minute. I was already in the chair, so why not? There was no expectation and it still happened anyway, which was just an added bonus.

The next week I started to layer on my new habit. My new statement was:

“After I get dressed in the morning, I will sit in my meditation chair and meditate for at least one minute.”

I would keep track of my success and as long as I managed to perform the habit at least 5 out of 7 days, then I would layer again. So the next week, I increased the meditation to 2 minutes, then the next week to 3 minutes and so on until I increased the time to 6 minutes per day.

The habit was then created and at least 5 days out of 7, after I got dressed in the morning, I would sit in my meditation chair and meditate for however much time I had on that day. There is not one day that I sat in that chair that I couldn’t do at least one minute of meditation and that made me feel really good because even one minute of meditation 5 days a week is better than none. Meditation habit successfully created!

So what happens if the habit you’re trying to create isn’t forming? That’s when you need to start examining each of the 3 components. The CUE or TRIGGER, the HABIT itself or the REWARD.

Is the CUE or TRIGGER the right one? If you aren’t a morning person, it’s probably not the best idea to try to create a morning exercise habit. Instead, try attaching it to something later in the day.

If changing the CUE or TRIGGER doesn’t work, then look at whether the issue is the habit itself that you’re trying to create. Is the step too big? For instance, if you’re a busy mum and you’re trying to create a yoga habit in the morning, and you’re starting from not doing any yoga at all, whilst 5 minutes may not seem like a long time, it could be too long in the initiation phase. If you’re not successfully initiating the habit, and the CUE or TRIGGER seems ok, then try decreasing the step from 5 minutes of yoga to even just doing 1 yoga pose. Once you’re doing that consistently, then layer on it to 2 yoga poses and so on until you get to the yoga session duration that you’re aiming for.

Finally, if the CUE or TRIGGER and the HABIT itself seem ok, then analyse the REWARD component. Is the REWARD big enough for you to go out of your way to achieve it? If not, then you won’t be able to create a long term habit.

How long does it take to create a habit? Popular belief is that it takes 21 days. This is not actually entirely correct and is the reason why a lot of people regress after they think they’ve successfully created a new habit.

Based on a study conducted by Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at University College London, which was published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, it can actually take anywhere from 18 up to 254 days to create a new habit. In most cases, it actually takes more than 8 weeks to create a new habit and if you’re looking for the average length of time, it takes exactly 66 days which is more than 3 times more than the common belief. No wonder so many find themselves back at square one just when they thought they had it all sorted!

Reader Spotlight

Thank you to Narmie who left the following review after reading “Healthy! Beautiful Inside & Out ”:

You can find more details on Healthy! Beautiful Inside & Out here.

Weekly Challenge

Your mission this week, if you choose to accept it, is to do the following:

Choose a habit that you want to create for yourself and decide the following components:

1. What will you attach it to?

2. What will be the TRIGGER or CUE?

3. How will you make the DESIRE attractive?

4. How will you make it easy to BEHAVE in the desired way?

5. How will you make the REWARD satisfying?

6. What will be the first S.T.E.P.S step?

7. Create your sentence: (When) I (blank), I will (blank)

8. Keep track of your progress, celebrate and reward yourself, even if you miss a day!

If you need some help, feel free to hit reply - let’s help you get started if you’re stuck!

B ME Bites is deliberately sent on a Friday morning (Aussie time) so that where ever you are in the world, you have the weekend to give yourself the gift of implementing a small change towards a better you. What will that small change be? Is there a change that you have been trying to make and haven’t yet succeeded? Give it another go, applying the above - you can do it!

Resource Roundup

Here’s The Ultimate Healthy Habit Creation Planner - a FREE resource to help you to create and keep track of your new healthy habits.

If you want to learn more about habits, James Clear wrote a great book called “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” - check it out on Amazon.

Here’s a great 8 minute video that James Clear did on the topic:

And here is an article that James wrote that goes into greater depth on how long it takes to form a new habit. James has some great resources on his website that you can check out while you’re there:

Below is a resource list that has been created with you in mind. Whenever something new that could be helpful is discovered, it’s added to the list, so check it out from time to time. If you’re strapped for time, once you open the page below, scroll down to the Resource List section and click on the “Health Tools” link for a list of items that could be helpful on your path to a better you.

The answer to this week’s trivia question is:

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Hit reply and answer either 1,2 or 3, and, if the answer is 2 or 3, give the deets on what would make it a 1 for you!:

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Until next week, keep taking one S.T.E.P.S step at a time! (If you missed the issue explaining The S.T.E.P.S Formula, you can check that out in Edition #2)

Warm regards,

Shari Ware Chief Encouragement Officer at B ME Bites

PS - Here’s a little Friday funny for you!

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