Habits, Why Do They Matter?

Habits are by far one of the most important factors that determine your efficiency, productivity, and your result. Good habits will boost your productivity, but bad habits will be your biggest enemies to become successful.

Recently, I was reading the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. It is a book that I cannot recommend enough, regardless of whether you are in the tech industry or not. The book talks about how small actions taken regularly become the root cause of some big things. In this article, I will be sharing some of the key points that I learned from the book, and also, I will be sharing some of my thoughts on all those points.

What Are Habits?

A habit is an action repeated regularly. It is something that you do without realizing. For example, every morning, you might have a habit of having a cup of tea. Because it is a habit, you do it effortlessly. Habits are a way for you to perform a task with a very less amount of conscious input from your side.

You are your habits

This is a point that not many people understand, and quite literally, you are your habits. What you do daily says a lot about you. Ultimately, your habits matter a lot as they are the lead reasons for you becoming the person you wish to become. If you maintain healthy and good habits, you yourself will become healthy and have a good lifestyle. If you code an hour a day for a long period of time, you end up becoming a coder.

Your identity is defined by your habits. If you want to become a coder, you practice code every day. If you want to become an artist, you practice art every day.

Now that we know about the reasons to maintain good habits, let’s have a deep dive into how habits are actually developed.

The four-step process of developing a habit

Developing a habit in its core has a four-step process, that is:

Cue, craving, response, and reward.

The cue is you noticing a problem. The craving is to solve the problem. The response is to take action towards solving the problem, and the reward satisfies your craving.

Let’s take an example of you developing an unhealthy habit of looking at your phone at every notification. Here, the cue is you thinking about the contents of the message. The craving is you thinking of picking up the phone and looking at the content. The response is when you actually look at your phone, and the reward is that you got the satisfaction of getting to know the contents of the message. This becomes a habit very easily, as you get messages all the time, and hence you are exposing your brain to a lot of rewards based on the actions you take.

An example of building a healthy habit would be when you start working out.

The cue is that you notice that you are getting overweight. Your craving is to get in shape with those 6 pack abs. Your response to this is going to the gym every day, and the reward that you get is a good body.

A common question is: “Why is it so easy to build bad habits and so hard to break good ones?”

The answer to it would be the reward. In the case of looking at your phone, what you get is an immediate reward. Normally, bad habits give you a really short term reward, and hence you end up going through the cycle of cue, crave, response, and reward very soon. In the case of good habits, though, the reward comes after a lot of time and takes a lot of effort. That is why you do not get immediate dopamine hits and you do not wish to pursue the habit.

How To Break Bad Habits and Build Good Ones — The 20-second rule

The 20-second rule is a really powerful way for you to develop good habits. It is also a way to develop bad habits.

What the 20-second rule basically says is that you have 20 seconds to get going with an action. If you cannot start the action within 20 seconds, then you are very less likely to do it.

What makes a difference here is the fact that this is a double-edged sword. If you allow yourself to get going with a bad habit in 20 seconds, you will go down. On the other hand, if you make it easy to get going with a good habit, then you are more likely to do it.

Make it easy to perform a good habit, and hard to perform a bad one. Put that book on your desk and throw your phone away or lock it in a drawer.

Give your cravings direction

You might have a craving to look at your phone, or maybe drink alcohol. It is up to you what you do. If you give your cravings direction, then you will see that you are working towards the good and not the bad. Giving your cravings direction is extremely important to make good habits.

You can do so by saying to yourself: “I want this. Not that”.

Take action immediately

Many say that there is a short window of 5 minutes before which an idea is just forgotten by your brain. If you respond to an idea immediately, then you will find yourself making it come true. You will want to get it to life. Take action fast.

Final Words

Whatever I have mentioned in this article has been taken from the book atomic habits. It is truly a life-changing book, and you learn a lot about personal development.

Thank you for reading the article. I hope you found value in this article.

Priyanshu Saraf.