You’ve tried…and tried…and tried to change that habit.  But it just never seems to stick.  What are you doing wrong?  One reason a change may not stick is that you aren’t clear on what you want, but with a habit change that’s not likely the issue.  So let’s look at three other things that may interfere with the development of a new habit.

Too Big a Jump

Often, the difficulty is that you’re simply trying to take too big a step all at once.  You don’t start at the bottom of a mountain and, in one step, arrive at the top.  You get there little by little.  Habit changes are a similar thing.  You’re looking to change heavily-ingrained patterns, and it’s easiest to do that little by little.  What do I mean by that? How about a few examples?

You’re totally out of shape. You never exercise at all.  But you want to start exercising regularly and get in shape.  Chances are, if you decide you’re going to get up every morning and run a mile, you’re going to peter out.  Why?  There’s too big a gap between where you are now and where you want to be.  Try starting with something smaller, like getting up and walking around the block.  When that has become largely habitual, then you can step it up.  (No pun intended.)

You’ve been sleeping late, rising at around 10:00 a.m.  You decide you need to be an early riser, so you start setting the alarm for 5:30.  Now, maybe you’re just disciplined enough to make that work.  But most people in that situation (unless there’s some outside influence, like a new job you have to leave the house for by 6:30) are just going to turn off the alarm and go back to sleep.  It’s too drastic a change.  Try turning back the alarm by half an hour every day or every few days until you arrive at your target time.  (If you’re really struggling, move it in 15- or even 5-minute increments!)

Hopefully you get the idea!  It’s said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step — and it’s true.  Don’t stress over not making the whole journey in one day. 🙂  Just take a step.  It will soon become easier and easier to take a step — and then you can take more steps at a time.

Insufficient Trigger

Habits are repetitive behaviors — x always happens when….  The “when” is the trigger.  It may be a time of day, an emotion, an activity, an event…there are any number of triggers.  But often when we’re looking to create a new habit, we fail to consider the trigger.  Either we don’t “attach” the desired action to anything at all, or we choose the wrong trigger.

An example of a wrong trigger would be if you’re a smoker, and you want to quit smoking and replace that habit with something else — let’s say chewing gum.  If your trigger for smoking is nervousness, but you attach your new habit to eating meals (“after every meal I’m going to chew gum”) that plan is probably not going to be very effective.  You want to use the same trigger in this instance: “When I’m nervous, I’m going to chew gum.”

An example of a missing trigger would be, “I’m going to exercise every day.”  Okay, when?  What is going to remind me to go exercise?  It could be “when the alarm goes off,”  “when I’m finished eating lunch,”  “after I put the kids to bed,”  etc.

Or what about, “I want to drink eight glasses of water a day”?  Okay, good…when?  The right trigger is whatever is a big enough “hook” in your day or in your mind that it will effectively remind you of that desired action.  Make sure you have a trigger!  (I’ve found that solidly-established habits are usually effective triggers.)

Reward is Too Small

It’s also possible that the reward is simply too small to overcome your emotional objections.  Remember our example of waking up four-and-a-half hours earlier?  If you have a new job that requires you to be up at that time in order to be on time, that’s a pretty significant reward.  You get up when you’re supposed to, you get to work on time.  If you don’t, you’re late (or, heaven forbid, miss work altogether).  For most reasonable adults, that’s a pretty good reason to get out of bed!

But what if you just decided to get up that much earlier because you think you should?  Chances are, “I really should get up early,” is not going to be sufficient motivation to overcome, “but I’m tired and warm and comfortable.”

If too little reward is the problem, then either you need to up the ante in practical terms (maybe there is a big benefit, and you just need to focus on it more heavily, like “if I get up at 5:30, I can have a few minutes of quiet before the kids wake up”), or you need to intentionally reward yourself for taking those steps you’re not otherwise motivated to do.

These rewards don’t have to be big.  They could even be incremental.  For instance, if I really wanted a new Vessel necklace, the whole shebang might be a bit much to reward myself for getting out of bed earlier.  But I could gift myself a set of ScentSpheres for hitting one milestone, a chain for another, and the locket itself for hitting a bigger milestone.  (Or I could do different colors of ScentSpheres for the necklace I already have, as an ongoing option.  They’re not expensive.)

I know I have a hard time sometimes coming up with rewards for myself, because it seems like so many things either a) are junk food (okay on occasion, but not what I want to be my staple reward!), b) are too expensive, or c) would require a babysitter that I don’t have.  So I brainstormed for a long time and created a set of cards that have ideas for rewards that a) aren’t sweets (popcorn does make an appearance once), b) are under $10, mostly under $5, and c) don’t require a babysitter. 🙂  If you’d like your own set, you can buy them here.  Or I encourage you to brainstorm your own list and keep it handy for those times you’re a little “stuck.”

Do you have tips of your own for making habits stick?