Don’t Try to Will Your Habits, Cultivate Them

One fatal mistake when starting a new habit is thinking that sheer commitment to the behavior will lead to success. We tend to overestimate our commitment and neglect our environmental context. If you are starting a new habit, the first question you should be asking is, “Where does this habit fit into my environment?”

With the right prompt, a stable environment, and persistence, we have a greater chance of turning the corner on making the behavior stick in our lives.

A prompt is just a reminder telling you to take an action. This could be your phone’s alarm (a type of contextual prompt) telling you to take medication.

But what if your medication is in the other room? How easy is it to dismiss the alarm and go about your day? Too easy.

Your environment matters. Location and time are key ingredients that make prompts effective.

I am Getting Thirsty

Let’s say you want to get into the habit of drinking more water. That is vague, so you get specific. 20oz of more water. Now you just need to rely on your strong intentions, right?

Nope. Your plan won’t work or has a high probability of failing.

A better chance would be to set up a prompt. After I wake up and brush my teeth, I will drink 20oz of water. This is a sequential prompt (also called habit stacking).

That is good, but we can go even further.

A prompt works best with a frictionless behavior — meaning it has to be easy to do. Focus on drinking water as easily as possible.

The bottle has to be near, be visible, and have water in it. Think of the time gap between brushing and taking a gulp of the bottle as friction.

Water bottle in the kitchen? Location friction. Having to go in a different room takes effort.

Empty water bottle? Friction in time and location. Different room plus filling it up takes even more effort.

Near you but can’t see it? Visibility friction. There is a reason food companies fight to have their products placed at eye level at the grocery store.

All these friction points cause us to reconsider and get distracted. Our desired action is exposed.

At this point you might be thinking, I am making a minor point, but that is you underestimating your environment. If committed to the habit of drinking water in the morning, don’t leave these things to chance. The minor details matter. Life is made up of millions of different variables. Control them as best as you can.

After you drink 20oz of water, you will refill it (time), place it at eye level on the dresser (visibility) outside of your bathroom (location). This bottle is exclusively for your habit of drinking more water. It has a single purpose. Don’t move it.

The Missing Piece to Habit Formation

Ultimately, any habit you want to build depends on the environment. And before, you can create those favorable conditions to make your habit easier, you need awareness of your environment.

This comes to the realization that habit building is a tactical approach. A jigsaw puzzle that needs to have pieces put precisely in the right place. Not a brute force of commitment.

This is not to say strong commitment isn’t required. Habit formation is a hard business, we need everything in our arsenal, just don’t underestimate your environment. It is the missing piece of the equation. A consciously controlled environment allows any new behavior to flourish.