These two things help you to build Long-Lasting Habits

Building habits make your life better. Your success depends on your habits. According to Brian Tracy, a famous motivational speaker and author. "Successful people are simply those with successful habits". It is true what he said. There is no successful person without good habits.

Personally I have tried and tested many methods in building habits. In this post, I will share with you how to build long-lasting good habits. Before that here is an example of how I built a habit.

I wanted to read before sleeping. So I changed my schedule and decided to read the book until I sleep. In the first attempt, I failed. Later changed it as "Read 25 pages a day". I failed in the second attempt too. There are many failures to build a habit. In the end, I did one thing to build the habit. I decided to read only one page a day. This is called micro habit. Did I succeed? Read ahead.

What is a micro habit?
A micro habit is the simplest form of a habit that we can do under any circumstance. Let's say to form an exercise habit. You have to do one push up a day rather than 50 or 100.

This was so simple and I have tested it too. It went well for the first few days, yet I failed. The reason is all my actions before performing the habit were messy. Sometimes I come from outside or do some pending works, meet friends, spend time with mom, etc. Here comes the new concept called triggers.

What are the triggers?
Triggers are the cues that you get before performing the habit. They are like signals. For example, We move when the traffic signal turns green. Greenlight is our trigger.

Consider the reading habit I tried earlier. After deciding the micro habits, I formulated a trigger for the micro habit that I will put my digital devices aside to read a page in my book. After formulating the trigger, I was able to keep my micro habit rolling every day. You might ask will this trigger and micro habit concept will give results?

It works for sure. Here are the reasons. Reading one page a day doesn't indicate you only read a page. Sometimes based upon the interest and mood you read more than one.

In worst-case scenarios, you read a page and wind up the action. Because micro habits won't take a long time to act upon. You have no reason to avoid them. They helped in other aspects of my life.

For example, while going for a walk I applied the same thing. I decided to get out of the apartment and do at least 1000 steps a day. The triggers here are as soon as the alarm will sound on. I will get out of bed. Freshen up and eat a banana. Wear the shoes, and head towards the road. This worked out well for me.

The most significant thing about micro habits is to constantly react towards the triggers. As soon as you start acting the same every day. You will develop a reaction habit to trigger, which is registered in the subconscious mind. In the next section, I will explain the exact steps you have to take to apply this concept in your life.

How to apply the concept?
1. You decide to build a habit. Turn the habit into its simplest form, the micro habit. Writing 200 words, meditating for 2 minutes, reading a page, eating a fruit a day, doing a pushup, sprinting 20 meters are few micro habits.

2. Pick a time slot to perform the habit. The time slot must not change. If you change the time, there are chances you lose. For reading it is before sleep, and writing after the workout.

3. You have to observe the triggers and actions you do just before performing the habit for a week.

For writing, The trigger might be an alarm or just after putting your workout equipment away. Then you will sit in the corner and open your laptop to write. Observe in the first week and start doing the same actions to the same trigger.

4. Now you build the pattern of triggers and actions before performing the micro habit.

This helps you in the long run. Even in the worst cases, your triggers remind you of the actions as they are stored in the subconscious mind resulting in performing the habit.

According to Dr. Maxwell Maltz, It takes 21 days to develop a habit. This period may change person to person based on his mental condition. Yet this works for most people.
As you complete this time period. You can increase your micro habits' level. Read 10 pages a day instead of 1. Do 15 minutes meditation instead of 2 or 5000 steps of walking instead of 1000.

Building habits is not so easy, but this concept will help you to build it better. If you want help in deciding your micro habits or triggers, comment below, I will try to help you figure them out. You can even pass out a compliment or a suggestion about the topic in the comments. Feel free to comment.

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