“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Will Durant

Habits are the programming language that defines our reality. We can attribute all of our successes and failures as a result of the habits that we formed. The good news is that habits can be learned at any stage of life. For example, imagine going to the gym for the first time and looking at all equipment with confusion and fear. Now imagine that somebody shows you how to walk through the machinery; they set you up with a routine so that you can start your conditioning. You follow this routine every time you go to the gym, and within a short period, you are no longer thinking about the routine; it is just programmed into your subconscious. Like the metaphor of a computer program running specific software, our brains work the same way when developing and conditioning habits.

One significant challenge is that we cannot change how we react to certain stimuli. For instance, if you have a sweet tooth that has been a part of your diet for many years, you're going to know what sugar's reward is when you put it into your body. However, what you do learn is a new routine that conditions you to see a different vision of this reward response with sugar in your body, such as health and vitality, weight loss, fitness, and overall feeling better. That vision will build a new habit that will set your focus on something more than the sugar rush.

People in recovery from addiction know this all too well. To talk with an alcoholic who has spent many years drinking, and then enters recovery and abstains from all alcohol, that individual will share that the temptation and desire to drink again are strong in the early stage. But creating a new routine and looking at the outcomes, meaning your future self, subordinate the desire for the immediate drink because your vision of your future is what your focus is on - a better life free from alcohol. They will also tell you that after time passes, that desire becomes less and less. Many share that they reach a point where they look at the actual substance as a poison and have now developed the rationale and reasons for living, thus not wanting to poison themselves any longer.

According to Dr. Steven Covey, in the seven habits of highly effective people, habits come down to three basic parameters. If you could picture three overlapping circles, each circle represents the parameter. The first is knowledge, what to do. The second is a skill, how to do it. And the third is why to do, the motivation.

This eloquent representation aligns perfectly with the science of habits. According to the literature, habits require a cue, knowledge. So the cue is where it all begins. This can include having hunger, a craving, being in a particular mood, and even a specific action like getting out of bed.

The skill parameter is considered the routine. Once you have the cue or the knowledge that routine is triggered. This is truly the basis of your habit. What are you doing for a particular cue?

The third is the Reward. This is the motivation or the want to do. The action and behaviors of the first two parameters give us the result that allows us to become repetitive. In other words, I like chocolate cake, so I buy a piece of it and consume it, and the result is the sugar rush that creates the Reward. My brain remembers this and thus repeats the process looking for the result. The exact process is applied to addiction as it is a reward system that our brain is conditioned to do and will continue to repeat unless it's interrupted.

Make Anything a Daily Habit

1. Optimize your environment using the path of least resistance

First, you need to optimize your environment.

This is all about looking outward to your physical surroundings and figuring out how you can modify those surroundings to give you the highest likelihood of success. That is, to stick to this habit for as long as takes until it starts to become automatic and outside influences stop being so dangerous.

To do that, utilize what I call the path of least resistance. The path of least resistance is a very simple principle with a myriad of uses that will help you establish new habits.

The principle is pretty simple. When we do something, there is inevitably some amount of force that works against us. Think of it as the mental version of inertia. I like to simply call it resistance. This resistance is a form of pain we feel when attempting to take an action. Which, as a result, often keeps us from acting because we're programmed to avoid pain.

This resistance is the result of many things, both outer and inner, but for the sake of this point, we'll be talking about the outer resistance that we encounter when trying to establish new, positive habits. This includes:

• Distractions such as our smartphones, social, or T.V.
• The structure of our daily life
• And the positioning of physical items in our vicinity.

So, what are you supposed to do? It's pretty simple: make what you want to do (whatever action is associated with the habit) easier to do and other potential distractions and barriers harder to get to or less obstructive.

For example, if you want to make drinking eight glasses of water a day your new habit, you need to remove other drinks like soda and juice from where they'll be easy to access and keep your water next to you. Another thing you can do is keep your water in a canteen that's easier to open than the twist cap of a typical store-bought water bottle.

Both of these things sound insignificant, but when added up they make a noticeable difference in either encouraging or discouraging you to act. 

2. Get crystal clear on why you want it

Second, you need to get really clear on why you want to establish this new habit.

It's not enough just to decide you want to wake up early every day, you need to have a really compelling reason why you want to rise early. Otherwise, believe me, it will never happen.

Take a few minutes – an hour even – to form a very clear picture of why setting this new habit is important to you and what it will allow you to do. Write this reason (or reasons) down on your smartphone, computer, or a piece of paper. Wherever you're more likely to see it each day.

Also, make sure that when you write this reason down, you describe it based on the emotions you feel when you imagine having created the habit.

So, going back to our early rising example, imagine the emotions you'd feel if you were able to wake up in the quiet of the morning each day and have your peaceful little moment in time to journal, exercise, meditate, and get off to a running start for the day. How would this make you feel? It's these emotions which will make your why really compelling.

Once you've done this, just make sure you're looking at it once or twice a day so that you keep that reason top-of-mind.

3. Remove expectations (and pressure) by shifting to a lifestyle mindset

This last one is the easiest of all to apply, however, for that reason it's also the easiest to write off and forget about.

Don't do that.

This simple shift in your mentality, from that of a habit which you have a goal of "acquiring" to a long-term change you're making in the way you live your life, transforms the way we think and act with regard to that habit.

It does a few things. First, and most importantly, it removes all expectations. All of a sudden, failure isn't possible. If you're making a new lifestyle change, it's not about doing or not doing, success or failure – it simply becomes a matter of when.

Second, and as a result of this, a ton of pressure is removed from your shoulders. You no longer feel pressed to get up early, to go work out, or whatever it is you're trying to do. This might sound bad, but really, you need to remove this pressure so that your motivation and energy for the task can take over and run freely.

It's the same principle as when we're stressed and trying to do something creative. When we're overly stressed, our creative pathways shut down and we can't create anything. By changing your mindset and removing these arbitrary expectations, you suddenly find it easier to take action (and habits established like this are healthier and more likely to stick). 

YOU CAN MAKE A DECISION RIGHT NOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE. 

LEARN HOW FOR FREE! Get your free eBook, "Just Decide - Putting an End to Being Indecisive," and take back your life! 

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