Stephanie Burns has a article on how to “install” a new habit. Sometimes it is very hard to create a new habit, especially there are some old habits blocking the way. Stephanie’s aritcle started by discussing what is a habit, what should be a habit. Then she discussed the core strategies for building new habits, and finally use some real examples to show those strategies.
… Installing new behaviours of any type take repetition over time. How much repetition and for how long depends on what it is you are trying to install.
One consideration is the size of the action. For simple habits of short duration – getting up earlier, making lunch for your children the night before, doing a load of laundry every morning, saving small change everyday, riding your bike to work, writing in a journal – you would do the entire action. For activities of longer duration you will need another step. …
Installing a new habit and breaking an old one – [stephanieburns.com]
(Since it’s not possible to directly comment on Stephanie Burns’ article at her site, I am offering a comment here. If this is inappropriate, Leon should feel more than free to delete me.)
I loved Stephanie’s article on Habit, I just wanted to point anyone who is interested in the subject to some brilliant and inspiring writing. The seminal writing on habit in both the history of psychology and philosophy is by William James.
Before I give you a sample-tip from James, I need to feed you two pieces of background info. First, James considers our ability to forge new habits to be a solution to very serious problems, such as alcoholism. He believed that the forming of positive habits, in fact, lead him out of a most serious depression. Second, he believed that the ability to forge new habits is like a muscle that you need to exercise in order to keep it working well; what I’ve called a “muscle” he calls “the faculty of effort.” Now, here is one of James’ tips:
“Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test.”*
(As you may have suspected, I’m writing a series of short posts on James and habit at my weblog.)
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* You can find this quote in “Pragmatism: A Reader” (ed. Menand), p. 67.
Tiger, we are more than welcome to receive such productive input!
“… Second, he (William James) believed that the ability to forge new habits is like a muscle that you need to exercise in order to keep it working well …”
Well said, and thanks for quoting William James.