Habits have a significant impact on the results we aspire to achieve in life, as they are a leading indicator of all the lagging results we seek. Our financial, eating, and learning habits lead to the results we desire, making it essential to focus on developing healthy habits.
In this episode, the host walks through science-supported hacks, tools, and strategies to help form new habits and make them stick. There is also a free guide available to apply the learnings step-by-step to breaking old habits or forming new ones.
Starting with small goals and making incremental progress is a lot easier than trying to shift our entire lifestyles overnight. It allows for setbacks and failures but focusing on making small improvements every day can help achieve bigger goals in the long run.
To form a good habit, identify the trigger and make sure it includes the four elements: location, time, emotional state, and the action to be performed. Similarly, to break a bad habit, acknowledge the established neural pathway and focus on letting it weaken over time by resisting the temptation when the trigger arises.
Researchers from MIT conducted experiments on rats to understand the habit control center in the brain, which is responsible for creating and maintaining habits, as neurological pathways that save time and energy.