Changing your habits can be powerful when you make a big life change. In fact, instilling a new habit and routine in your life can create foundational differences. Habits become virtually automatic responses to situational cues or prompts. 

When you choose a good habit, your automatic responses to situations in your life can increase your productivity and well-being. These types of habits can include:

  • Exercising regularly
  • Making healthy food choices
  • Getting enough sleep
  • Reading regularly
  • Meditating
  • Journaling
  • Practicing gratitude
  • Drinking enough water
  • Limiting recreational screen time
  • Being present
  • Becoming more organized
  • Learning a new skill
  • Practicing kindness
  • Spending money wisely
  • Taking part in self-care activities
  • Spending time in nature
  • Managing stress

Bad habits are those automatic behaviors that can negatively impact our lives. They can include:

  • Smoking
  • Nail biting
  • Procrastinating
  • Oversleeping
  • Unhealthy eating
  • Living a sedentary lifestyle
  • Impulsive spending
  • Negative self-talk
  • Gossiping
  • Distracting with entertainment

Many bad habits stem from attempts to relieve stress, boredom, or other emotions in unhealthy ways. Replacing bad habits with positive alternatives is key to successful behavior change.

Changing habits is challenging

When you’re looking to change your habits, you’re up against momentum. Your life is going one way, but you are deciding to move in another direction. Changing habits can be as challenging as learning to write with your non-dominant hand.

It is critical to understand how your mind and motivation work to dissipate bad habits and solidify good habits for long-lasting changes.

There are some activities we do every day without thinking. We’ve done these activities so many times that we can’t even imagine how we’d do things differently. The more times you’ve repeated an activity, the stronger those neural pathways are in your mind.

When you consciously choose a good habit, you can still find challenges in solidifying that positive behavior. There are several common blocks or obstacles that people face when trying to change or form a new habit:

  • Lack of purpose. Without a strong “why” or compelling reason, sustaining the effort required to ingrain a new habit is difficult.
  • Environment triggers. Specific cues in our surroundings can trigger the old, ingrained habit, making it harder to stick to the new one.
  • Emotional obstacles. Habits are often tied to emotions like stress, boredom, fear, or anxiety.
  • Lack of accountability. Not having anyone to answer makes slipping back into old patterns easier.
  • All-or-nothing mindset. Perfectionist thinking makes minor lapses feel like complete failures.
  • Lack of a plan. Diving in without a realistic, structured plan makes habits harder to implement.
  • Unrealistic expectations. Expecting too much too soon can lead to frustration and giving up.
  • Conflicting habits. New habits may contradict or compete with deeply ingrained existing routines.
  • Decision fatigue. Having to make the “right” choice over and over consciously is mentally draining.
  • Life disruptions. Changes to schedule, travel, etc., can derail the process of habit formation.

How to motivate during fundamental shifts

When working towards ingraining positive habit changes, there are key strategies that can help you find greater success against previous momentum.

Create small habits

The book Atomic Habits by James Clear explains the idea that making tiny improvements every day can have a much greater long-term impact than attempting to make huge leaps at once.

Clear outlines four laws for creating good habits and breaking bad ones, which are:

  1. Make it obvious. Design your environment to make cues of good habits obvious and visible.
  2. Make it attractive. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do to make habits more appealing.
  3. Make it easy. Reduce friction to make good habits easier to perform and bad habits harder.
  4. Make it satisfying. Use reinforcement to make good habits feel rewarding and bad habits unsatisfying.

Tie your new habit to a purpose

You might already know the purpose of your positive life change. If not, make sure you know your why. If you don’t have a purpose, start here: 

  • What will you want to look back on at the end of your life?
  • What will make your life feel significant?
  • What will give your life some meaning?
  • What does your life look like going through the journey of this change?
  • What will be the story of your change?

Create a new identity around your new habits

If you’re quitting a bad habit, align yourself with a new identity in how you describe yourself. 

  • If you quit smoking, you are now a non-smoker.
  • You’re now a runner if your goal is to start running to improve cardiovascular health.
  • If you’re lifting weights, you are a strength trainer.

Your new identity might not feel comfortable initially. But the longer you sit with a new habit, the more your new identity comes alive. This new identity supports the solidification of your new lifestyle. Before long, your new identity makes your new habits easier.

Create non-negotiables

Every day, create three non-negotiable activities that you must complete to support your new habit. Make them realistic goals that can easily be done in a few hours, things that cannot be moved, rescheduled, or dropped because it is convenient for someone else. It’s all too easy to slide back into old routines when we relinquish our commitment to our new routine. 

When you’ve committed to a new activity, such as going to the gym, and another event comes up, prioritize your commitment as non-negotiable. 

Start small

If a new activity feels overwhelming, start small. If you’re quitting a bad habit and need to stay away from things that trigger your habit, commit to yourself that you will stay away from the activity for a shorter length of time.

There’s a reason why many of the 12-step programs focus on one day at a time. Commit to a timeframe with which you can feel comfort and success. If one day of commitment feels too long, try committing to 3 hours. 

Link your Motivational Dimension to the new habit

Knowing how you’re motivated and working with your intrinsic motivation can make new commitments easier than ever. If you know your Motivational Dimensions, you can align new habits and new behaviors to your intrinsic motivations for better outcomes. 

For example, if you know you are an Achiever, tie your desired results to recognition or reward. If you’re hoping to improve your running, entering competitions where you can win a medal and recognition, such as a marathon, can motivate you.

Learners might want to dive deep into the intricacies and details of a new lifestyle as they commit to changes. They might also want to teach others how they’re making positive changes. By linking their Motivational Dimension to the new good habits they’re trying to establish, they’re more likely to make that good habit stick.

Optimizers thrive in environments where there is a plan. If you know that your primary Motivational Dimension is Optimizer, optimize processes and procedures in your plans to achieve your end goals in a way that motivates you.

Whatever your Motivational Dimension, there are clear pathways to making any life-changing good habit easier. Even if you’re embarking on a plan that has never been done before, Motivation Code has insights that can help you achieve your goals more easily.

Celebrate small wins

While delaying gratification can help shift to a new way of life, take time to celebrate how far you’ve come. Small wins, such as going three days without indulging in a bad habit, should be celebrated as a stepping stone to greater wins. If possible, tie your Motivational Dimension to your small wins for greater leverage.  

Be patient

No matter what life-changing goal you’ve set for yourself, be patient. It can take 2-3 months of daily practice for a behavior to become an ingrained habit. Stay persistent and stay aligned with your motivation.

Discover your MCode to help solidify good habits

Your Motivational Dimensions are a key component of who you are. It’s not just about productivity on the job or better communication with your team, though those are incredible results.

Motivation Code is an assessment that can help you improve all areas of your life, from creating new positive habits that support your well-being to better communication with family members. You can take the assessment in just a few minutes. It works based on your stories combined with decades of research in motivational science. Get started with Motivation Code and improve your habits.