The Best Way to Start a New Habit
4 concepts to master
Make It Obvious / 1st Law of Behavior Change: Make It Obvious
ConceptIncrease awareness of habits by creating obvious cues and designing a clear plan for when and where to take action. Make the behavior more visible and salient in your environment.
How It Works
Bringing habits into conscious awareness and linking them to existing routines makes them more likely to be initiated. By making the behavior more visible and salient in your environment, you reduce the activation energy required to initiate the habit, increasing the likelihood of following through.
Implementation Intention
ConceptA plan made beforehand about when and where to act, increasing the likelihood of following through with a new habit.
How It Works
By specifying the time and location for a behavior, it leverages common cues to trigger the habit, removing ambiguity and the need for in-the-moment decision-making.
Habit Stacking
ConceptPairing a new habit with a current habit to create an obvious cue for the new behavior.
How It Works
By linking a desired behavior to an existing routine, the established habit acts as a trigger for the new one, taking advantage of the connectedness of behaviors.
Diderot Effect
ConceptObtaining a new possession often creates a spiral of consumption that leads to additional purchases.
How It Works
A new purchase makes existing possessions seem inadequate, triggering the desire to upgrade or acquire complementary items, leading to a chain reaction of purchases.