I don’t know about you, but sometimes throughout my day, I have a moment where I stop and think about what it is I am doing because part of me does not remember making the decision to do it in the first place. Some of these behaviors or actions I find myself doing are productive, some are neutral, and some are ones that I wish I didn’t do as much, especially without thinking about it. According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, about 43% of what most people do every day is out of habit (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 83, No. 6, 2002). This is almost half of your daily life decided for you based on routine. Once again, if you are anything like me, there are parts of that 43% that I would rather be different, so here are some tips to better understand how habits work.
Eight Ways to Build New Habits and Make Them Stick
As the new year approaches and we begin to think about goals and resolutions, we all aim to have healthier and more positive habits, Creating good habits allows you to develop these goals and resolutions into automatic behaviors that you do naturally as part of your day to day life. How do you choose those new goals and turn them into healthy habits? List out the habits you’d like to adopt and then follow the tips below in order to move your goals into automatic pilot.