I consider there to be two types of habits in the world. Type1 is a habit which you purposely form yourself. Type2 is a habit which you pushed to.
Type1 can be something as routine as brushing your teeth every day. It can also be a little more absurd. Like biking on your Peloton in the back of a white van every morning as your driver works their way through traffic from Marin into SF (true story).
Type2 habits are a little more nefarious. These are habits that we are urged into and form without consciously making the decision. The tech community is often ridiculed for starting these habits with notification systems that ding, buzz and show red icons until we dive into the urgency. I don’t think anyone purposely thought “Hey I’m going to wake up and check Instagram every morning.” But as we all know, about 50% of the millennial population and younger does this, or something similar on their social platform of choice. Those who have read Nir’s book Hooked are well aware that these notifications are designed to… well… hook us.
What I want to dissect isn’t the role of technology in habit-forming, but rather the steps that are needed to form any habit. There are really 4 different steps to building a habit: realizing the benefit, starting small, building routine, moving to unconsciousness.
Let’s break all the common habits into the different phases to see how they form.
- Realizing benefit: To form any habit, you have to understand the advantage that you’ll be receiving from fully implementing this type of practice. Brushing your teeth prevents cavities. Biking prevents weight problems. Checking Instagram might not be as obvious, but it can give you an intense visual stimulation. Or, if you’re me, your feed is filled with a dank set of memes to laugh at.
- Starting small: The first time you checked Instagram, you may have looked around for a while, but you probably didn’t check it every morning. You may have started adding some images and making friends, but it was likely an action that you consciously thought of. Brushing your teeth was even more carefree. When you first started, you weren’t also doing it – your parents were. The first time our mysterious Peloton rider rode a bike for exercise probably wasn’t in the back of an unlabeled white van. Instead, they started occasionally in the mornings doing a few miles here are there.
- Building routine: Once you get into a little bit of a groove, and fully understand the steps that it takes to complete the task that you are doing – you can start optimizing the process and putting it into your routine. The bike rider now understood that they could save about an hour every morning with their unique setup. They bolted the bike down in the back of a van and were off. Our teeth brusher decided that they are going to put the toothpaste on before wetting the brush and will conduct this activity every morning and evening. Our Instagram user started to become accustom the notification systems and starts logging in when they want to.
- Moving to unconsciousness: These tasks are now, essentially automated. A person no longer has to think “I should brush my teeth tonight.” They just do. Once you get to the point of just doing – you are Hooked. Whether or not that decision was under your control is the only thing left to consider.
When attempting to form habits, most people skip step 2. They go straight to step 3 and try to make the best possible situation first. All of the new year resolution people go straight from doing nothing to purchasing a two year gym membership at Equinox. They forget that simply walking for 30 minutes a day would be a step in the right direction.
This is true for nearly everything. Not only is it easier to start small. But it is better in the long term.