Make Good Habits to Make Life Easier

My smallest force of habit change? Wear perfume every day. This may sound very simple but, while I love beautiful scents, I always saved

my bottles for special occasions. The key to change was pairing it with another daily habit, in this case

the use of my bathroom washbasin. Every time I use that washbasin, I apply a quick dab of perfume.

My most dramatic the power of habit change?Giving up carbohydrates – I now eat a very low-carb diet. Other my habit changes were accomplished

with varying degrees of difficulty: I’m much better about going to bed on time; I have a “Power Hour”

every weekend, when I spend an hour working on a dreaded task I’ve put of; I’ve stopped after-dinner

snacking; I put away my clothes regularly (mostly); I no longer use salutations and closings in my emails;

I go for a weekly walk with a friend.

Habits like these are the invisible architecture of daily life. We repeat about 40 per cent of our behaviour

almost daily, in the same context, so our habits shape our existence – and our future. We form habits

because, when possible, the brain turns a behavior into a habit. This saves mental effort and, therefore,

gives us more capacity to deal with complex, novel or urgent matters.

Why are good habits so important?

Habits make life easier, in two important ways.

First, habits eliminate the need for self-control. Self-control is crucial; people with better self-control are

happier, healthier and more productive. Yet one study suggests that when we try to use self-control to

resist temptation, we succeed only about half the time. With habits, we conserve our self-control.

Because I’m in the creature habit of going to the gym every Monday morning, I don’t have to use self-

control, I just go.

Second, habits eliminate the drain of decision-making.

A habit requires no decision from me, because I’ve already decided. Am I going to brush my teeth when I

wake up? Take this pill? I shouldn’t worry about making healthy choices. I should make one healthy

choice, and then stop choosing, and rely on healthy habit.

So make good habits make life easier.

The next question, then, is: how do we change our habits? Alas, as we all know from tough experience,

there’s no magical one-size-fits-all solution. Some people do better when they start small; others when

they start big. Some people need to be held accountable; others defy accountability. Some people

should keep a habit in the morning; others do better at night. No wonder habit forming is so hard!

The secret to habit change is that we need to know and understand ourselves. To succeed, we must

each cultivate the habits that work for us.

For instance, to master our habits, it helps to know where we stand in the “Four Tendencies”

framework. In other words, we should ask: How do I respond to an expectation? We face two kinds of

expectations: outer expectations (meeting work deadlines, observing traffic regulations) and inner

expectations (stop napping, keep a New Year’s resolution). People fall into one of the Four Tendencies:

1. Upholders respond readily to both outer expectations and inner expectations. They form habits fairly

easily, and they embrace them.

2. Questioners question all expectations, and will meet an expectation only if they believe it’s justified –

so they turn all expectations into inner expectations. They readily form a habit if they’re convinced that

it’s a good use of their time and energy.

3. OBligers respond readily to outer expectations, but struggle to meet inner expectations. To form a

habit, they require external accountability. For instance, they find it hard to exercise on their own, but if

they work with a trainer, or meet a friend for a run, they’ll never miss a session.

4. Rebels resist all expectations, outer and inner. Rebels dislike habits because they want to do what

they want to do – at all times.

By a wide margin, most people are Questioners or Obligers. Very few are Upholders, and even fewer are

Rebels.