Developing A New Habit: 9 Proven Techniques to Help You Reach Your Goals

On a ranking of 1 to 10, how weary are you of setting goals and not accomplishing them? The key to achieving your goals is to chip away at them little by little, in small steps performed daily. 

When you learn how to develop a new habit that is connected to a goal you are striving for, then you can find yourself inching nearer to success. 

A new habit is easy-peezy to perform after nurturing it because you are performing it spontaneously without considering it, just like you brush your teeth and drive your car. 

Here are few proven techniques for forming a new habit that goes a long way in shaping your life.

1. Connect the New Habit with Your Previous Ones

Among the positive ways to form habits is to link them with one that you already possess. To achieve this, you must consider an activity, that you do without fail and discover how you can cultivate the new habit that you are interested in taking up.

Since many people have a productive morning routine, this might be the ideal time to include a new habit. For instance, you could perform exercises like lunges and squats while brushing your teeth or even utilize this time to follow mindfulness.

Adding habits to your nighttime regimen is also possible. In place of slumping on the couch immediately on reaching home and switching on the TV, you could carry out a mild and relaxing yoga session that enables you to release stress.

2. Set Reminders

Reminders are extremely important in building a new habit. Selecting a good and proper reminder can be the key to effective habit building.

One of the finest ways of setting a reminder is linking it with already developed daily habits. Prepare a list of them and discover the best one that can act as the new habit’s reminder.

For instance, if you are switching the light on every day when it gets darker, it can be an ideal reminder to form a new habit. You can do a few exercises for a short span after switching on the light. Rapidly, this will become a habit and you can follow it for longer periods.

When you get a reminder while doing something, the possibility that you will leave it and begin performing the new habit is not a viable option. Adversely, beginning practicing a new habit after completing the previous effective one is the perfect solution.

3. Develop Specific Habits

Regarding habits, the more specific they are, the more probable it is to get realized. Concerning this, if what you desire is to eat healthily and shed weight, mentioning that you wish to cultivate “healthy eating habits” is too commonplace to transform into reality.

So, you must think about specific actions like purchasing whole grain oats each time you visit the supermarket or consuming raisins and walnuts as a mid-afternoon nibble from Monday to Friday.

Unless you keep a goal post in sight, it is probable you would not understand simply where and how to kick. It will always aid to be specific concerning your goals of developing a new habit. What is it that you wish to accomplish and by when? Generic goal-fixing may not prove as effective as being specific when you wish to form a new habit. Focus on specifics like time, place, duration and the like. the instant you set a goal for yourself.

4. Do It Daily

A study in which subjects were asked to select a small habit that they wished to build, like drinking water during lunch or taking a stroll before dinner, disclosed that the duration it took for the activity to be performed automatically was sixty-six days on average.

This result displays that habits require a long time to form, but if they are done regularly, the process can be quicker. Bearing that in mind, it is prudent to begin with a small and practical habit. This way, doing it daily will sustain it in the long run.

Simply because you are doing something daily does not imply it has to use up a huge amount of your time, or even must be similar investment of time daily.  

Some days you might be feeling more inspired than others, and that is alright. Simply be sure to stretch slightly to ensure the habit gets routine for you.

5. Begin Small

The next step in the process of building a new habit is to begin small. You do not wish to overburden yourself from the start, because it will raise the chances of you giving up.

By starting small, you allot some time to get familiar with the activity. Then you can start to gradually increase whatever you are performing.

A great instance of this imagining someone who would want to start going to the gym daily. Unless the person has amazing self-discipline, it might not be the best option to begin by hitting the gym for an hour daily.

They would probably become burnt out very fast. Rather, a wise move would be to start by exercising for some minutes a day, like 5-10.

Then raise it to 15 minutes, and so on. Ultimately, the person will keep desiring more and more till they are habitually visiting the gym daily for their preferred amount of time.

6. Remove Obstacles That Come In Your Way

Experts suggest that eliminating the obstacles that come in your way makes you more liable to build a new habit.

A study posted in the Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis displayed that altering the closing time of elevator doors from ten seconds to a minute and a half, led to many people to begin climbing the stairs rather than wait for the elevator and even keep on using them after the elevator came back to its initial configuration.

This is also witnessed a lot in the realm of marketing. The experts in this sphere decrease all probable obstacles to make us spend more money. An instance of this is Amazon’s 1-Click button, which permits you to shop faster without needing to undertake the process of including products to your cart.

7. If You Are Performing Nicely, Reward Yourself

As per research posted in the journal BMC Psychology, rewards act to reinforce a behaviour that we wish to change into a habit.

Although there are habits with instant gratifications, like keeping a fresh mouth and minty breath after brushing, there are others like shedding weight or building strong abs that take more time, so you need to contemplate about rewards that assist to create the habit.

Some instances are hearing music or audiobooks while jogging or viewing one of your preferred shows while working out on the treadmill or stationary bike.

Rewarding yourself as you achieve milestones will assist you enjoy the process.

Some splendid ways to reward yourself as you form habits are to:

• Make a partner or friend come with you and perform the new habit with you
• Eat something delicious and healthy
• Plan and spare time for yourself
• Purchase yourself a fun, helpful item

Just ensure you are doing things that seem good or are profitable for your life in some manner. This is a vital step since it makes building new habits much more fun which lead to improved results over time.

8. If You Fail, Do Not Be So Tough on Yourself

A slight relaxation during hard times can bring all the difference. One day you resolved that you wished to improve your eating habits and would begin munching on a fruit salad rather than candy, chocolate, or other unhygienic snacks. The first week, you completely comply daily, nonetheless, you fail in your activity during the second week and you start to blame yourself.

There is scientific proof that suggests that instead of being helpful, blaming yourself can backfire. Due to this, the advice is to be benevolent to yourself and realize that although you have had difficulty fulfilling your new habit, this is normal in the given situation, and it is prudent to get up and continue with greater strength the following day.

Negative self-talk or negative thinking will merely result in frustration and a bad self-image. When you discover yourself slipping into a mode of negative self-talk and scolding yourself for not achieving your individual expectations, it is crucial to be self-aware.

When you enter the negative pattern of beating yourself up over committing mistakes, or not remembering to do something or omitting a day on your habit-building journey, it does more injury than good. It is hard to come out of negativity so the quicker you do it, the better.

9. Keep A Track on Your Progress

It is easier to get affected by the entire things you cannot do, if you do not point out to yourself of the things you can. So, while it is vital that when you form new habits, maintaining a check of your progress is most important. If offers you a positive psyche to keep you going.

Tracking your progress does not need to be very complicated. It can involve a simple tick on the calendar after attaining your daily goal.

The Bottom Line

Habits really are what define our lives. Therefore, it is so essential to ensure the habits that are regulating your life are positive, beneficial, and healthy to your long-term success. Knowing how to develop a new habit will be of immense value to your advancing forward in life.

Like other things, the more you instruct yourself to adopt a new habit and stick with it, the faster you will be able to achieve it in the future.