Atomic Habits

So, we've just explored how habits are formed. Let's quickly summarize. A habit is made up of four components: a cue – a trigger that prompts you to act; a craving – the desire you wish to fulfill; a response – the actual action of the habit; and a reward – the positive feeling you experience after completing the habit.

Once you understand how these elements work, you can manipulate the habit-forming process to cultivate beneficial and productive habits.

Imagine you're eager to master the guitar. You've got your instrument, you've learned the basics, but you find it difficult to maintain consistent practice. Every morning, you promise yourself you'll play later, but by the end of the day, you haven't touched your guitar.

Now that you know the key to forming habits, you can leverage this knowledge. For instance, you want to make the cue to pick up your guitar impossible to overlook. Instead of storing your guitar in a cupboard or a corner of your spare room, place it prominently in the center of your living room – where it's clearly visible. Making your cue visible and unavoidable will make it simpler to turn your desire to practice into a routine.

Modifying your environment to highlight your cues will help, but if you want to refine your triggers further, you can employ what are known as implementation intentions. So, what are these?

When it comes to establishing good habits, many of us are too vague about our goals. We say, "I'm going to eat healthier," or "I'm going to learn guitar," and we simply hope we'll follow through.

An implementation intention can help us move beyond vague goals. Implementation intentions provide a clear plan of action; they help you specify when and where you'll perform the habit you wish to develop.

Let's revisit our guitar example. Instead of telling yourself, "I'm going to practice guitar sometime this week," tell yourself, "On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, when the alarm goes off, the first thing I'll do is pick up my guitar and practice for one hour." And remember to leave your guitar in the middle of the room.

By creating an implementation intention, you'll provide yourself with both a clear plan and an obvious cue, and you might be surprised at how much easier it becomes to establish a positive habit.

Let's take a moment to reflect on this.

You might be thinking, this all sounds quite reasonable, but does it actually work? Can I truly modify my environment to make it easier to form positive habits? It sounds good in theory, right? But in reality?

To address this question, let's consider the work of Anne Thorndike, a doctor based in Boston, and no, she isn't related to the cat enthusiast, Edward Thorndike. Dr. Anne Thorndike faced a common challenge among health professionals: she wanted to help her patients improve their diets and snacking habits. However, she also knew that making a conscious decision to eat healthier can be difficult. It requires a lot of willpower and discipline – and not everyone has an endless supply of these qualities.

So, Anne Thorndike and her colleagues conducted an experiment. As part of the study, they rearranged the hospital cafeteria. They replaced the soda in the refrigerators near the cash registers with bottled water and placed baskets of bottled water throughout the cafeteria. Dr. Thorndike and her team then observed the results.

And what happened? Over three months, soda sales dropped by 11 percent, and water sales increased by over 25 percent. By creating more cues for people to drink water, Dr. Thorndike and her team were able to encourage people to make healthier choices.

In essence, they were able to help people develop better habits without forcing them to make a conscious decision to do so. This is clear evidence that altering your environment can facilitate the adoption of better habits.