How to Develop and Stick to Habits

Hey there! 

Did you realise that it’s the second month of the year already? 

I think it’s a good time to look back and review if we have stuck to the habits we wanted to stick to (or alternatively, the habits we wanted to leave) at the beginning of the year.

But first let’s understand why we do what we do.

Why do we want to create or maybe leave some habits in the first place? 

It’s because we know that developing (or leaving) certain habits will improve us and help us in one way or the other. 

It is worth noting that even leaving an old habit is the same as creating a new one. If someone has a habit of waking up late, and decides to drop it, they are basically going to create a habit of waking up early. You drop one, you get one – you have a habit both ways, just what you accomplish through the habit is changed.

For the same reason that we’ll improve, we readily agree to create new habits and practices. 

But the thing is that we have trouble keeping and developing those habits. 

Many times, when we do not take action on something or do things so that it actually becomes a habit, it’s probably because we don’t care about it. And that does make sense, because how will we care about something we haven’t put in effort yet? More often than not, we tend to care about things that we have put effort in.

And not just a meagre amount of effort, what I’m talking about is literally days of effort. 

A classic example of this can be seen in multiple social media apps. The one I have observed closely is that of snapchat. Yes, you probably know that I’m talking about snapstreaks.

For those who don’t know what snapstreak (or just streak) is –  A Snapchat streak is when you send direct snaps back and forth with a friend for several consecutive days. The longer you go without breaking the chain of communication, the longer your streak is. You have to snap back within the 24 hours of the other person sending you a snap. Completing this cycle once, will be counted as streak for 1 day and streak will only start after you’ve snapped each other everyday for 3 days. The number on your streak tells for how many days consecutively you’ve been snapping your friends.

Why I brought up streaks is because nobody wants to break their streak with someone else. People try to send the snap even when they are super busy and occupied. Sometimes people even get upset if you break the streak with them. Because of course, there’s nothing more devastating than losing a streak you’ve put months of work into. Right?

Exactly. Be it streaks or something else you wouldn’t want days of effort to go in vain just because one day, you don’t feel like it or don’t want to do it. You know that if you drop it here, you’ll have to start from scratch again. So it’s better to do a small bit now, rather than doing all of the work again. 

If you are working out consecutively and don’t want to one odd day, just think that you may have to start again. Remember that your stamina and capability will decrease if you get a gap in between. So it would be wiser to work out for a small time now, rather than investing way more time in the future.

There is just one pitfall that we need to work on –  creating streaks long enough that we care about them. We need to really use our willpower to work for the first few days. These days could be the ones with maximum temptation to give up or not even start something in the first. But the good part is that the starting days are also the ones we are the most excited and energetic about. So if we leverage our enthusiasm for actually creating a long enough streak for us to care about, we are all set. 

After that you can easily thrive on the power of your streaks. You won’t even feel like dropping your habit despite you wanting to, because you have put in effort in it and you don’t want the improvement that has come about to be nullified by your inaction.

Tell me in the comments what habits have you maintained and what habits you want to develop. I have developed the habit of publishing a post every Sunday and I want to develop the habit of scheduling my day well.