How to Form Habits That Make Your Life Easier

The purpose of having habits is to make your life easier, so your brain can conserve energy (“brain power”).

Habits allow for many of our daily tasks to be on autopilot. That way, you don’t have to think about every single action you take, every moment of the day.

You aren’t required to make as many decisions, because of habits. Not having to make as many decisions is a great thing, especially as a busy career woman. It conserves quite a bit of brain power and makes your day so much easier.

“Bad” habits, like unhealthy eating habits or even being in the habit of having negative thoughts about yourself, can have a negative effect on your body and mind health though.

They can lead to not getting the results you want, or having negative feelings about yourself, other people, or the circumstances in your life.

This means that bad habits are counterproductive to making your life easier, and can do quite the opposite.

When you have plenty of “good” habits however, you can be rest assured that your brain is going to optimize your day for you by automatically making better choices.

Better choices means results you actually want, plus less negative thoughts and feelings.

Of course this isn’t a perfect system, but I’m going to share with you how to form habits that make your life easier (i.e. “good” habits), with some simple tools.

Make it Easy to Repeat the Behavior Until it Becomes a Habit

Before I get into sharing some of the tools to form habits that make your life easier, I have to tell you the key component to turning a “good” or healthy behavior into a habit in the first place.

Knowing this, will help you with any healthy habit you want to be on autopilot.

Your habits exist because of neuropathways in your brain. Neuropathways are just the communication paths between neurons (nerve cells) that fire whenever you perform an action. They strengthen and fire more quickly when that action is repeated, eventually forming a habit.

From very early childhood to early adulthood, when a behavior isn’t repeated, synaptic pruning occurs. This is when your brain “prunes away” the neuropathways that haven’t gotten strengthened, so your “brain power” can be put to better use. Neat, huh?

In adulthood beyond your early 20s, the understanding is that synaptic pruning probably no longer occurs. However, when you don’t strengthen a neuropathway with repetition of a behavior, it just never becomes a habit.

Therefore, the key to forming a “good” habit, is to increase the likelihood that you will repeat the action or behavior.

Meaning, you need to make it easy for your brain (and body) to repeat the action. Sometimes, it is tough to make it “easy,” so that’s when making it “easier” is handy.

So, if you want to start automatically choosing the healthier snack instead of the Oreos, then you need to make it easier for your brain and your body to eat the healthier snack.

• Related: 15 Healthy Snacking Habits to Start Right Now
• Related: Should You Break Your Habit of Snacking at Night?

This could entail putting the healthy snacks in a more visible spot that is easy to reach. It could mean making the healthier snack more appealing by placing a reminder somewhere of why you want to eat healthier.

If you want to start making it easier for you to go to the gym 5 days a week, then think of how it will be easier for you to get motivated. Also, think of how you can make it easier for yourself to perform the action of getting dressed for the gym, driving to the gym, etc.

Using Habit Stacking To Form New Habits Easily

When you’re trying to start a new habit, one way to make it easy on your brain is to make sure you don’t forget to do the new habit.

Such a common reason why new behaviors don’t turn into habits is because you have a lot going on, especially as a career woman, and can just simply forget to do what you intended to do.

Another reason why new behaviors can sometimes not turn into habits is because you aren’t doing them frequently enough. Remember how I just mentioned that repetition is necessary for a behavior to become a habit?

Yet another reason is because the new behavior is difficult to do, or too big a task to start out with. If you had never run a day in your adult life, and you committed to run a marathon, you wouldn’t start your training with a 10-mile run, right?

The same is true when it comes to forming habits.

Habit stacking addresses all of those components I just mentioned. It makes it easy to remember to do the new behavior, allows for a higher frequency, and starts you out small.

So, habit stacking is when you take a pre-existing behavior that is already a habit and do your new behavior after you do the pre-existing behavior.

You are essentially “stacking” one habit with another intended habit.

• Related: New Habits Made Simple With Habit Stacking
• GET WEEKLY TIPS: Eating Habit and Weight Loss Tips

Author James Clear discusses habit stacking in his book, “Atomic Habits” and credits Stanford Behavior Scientist and author of Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg PhD, with creating the method of habit stacking. However, multiple sources I found credit author, SJ Scott as first introducing the term.

So say for example, you wanted to form a new habit of taking 5 minutes of silence every day after work. You would pick something you habitually do after work already such as put your work shoes in your closet, and do the intended new behavior right after that.

How to Make Habit Stacking Even More Effective

A way you can make habit stacking even more effective is if you choose a habit you already do frequently and at the same time, place, or situation that you want to do this new habit.

As you recall, repetition is key when it comes to building new habits, so doing a new behavior at a higher frequency is very helpful. The more frequently you do a behavior, the more likely it will become a habit. Frequency also plays a part in how quickly a habit forms.

In addition, habits are strengthened more so when the behavior is done in the same context, meaning time, place, situation, etc. Your brain is better able to form associations, which means strengthening of those neuropathways.

So, if you want to form habits that make your life easier, then you’re going to want to stack them on top of a pre-existing habit done in the same context and at a similar frequency.

Using an Implementation Intention to Reach Your Goals

When you want to form habits that make your life easier, saying and writing down your intended new behavior that will turn into a habit is a must. If you are using habit stacking as one of your tools, it is also a great idea to write down your habit stacking plan.

When you state and write down your intended new behavior, it is called an Implementation Intention.

The idea of Implementation Intentions was introduced in 1999 by psychologist, Peter Gollwitzer. He found that implementation intentions can result in a higher probability of reaching your goal successfully.

Examples of Implementation Intentions Are:

I you intend to form a new habit of eating a salad for lunch every day at work, then your Implementation Intention would be “I intend to eat a salad at work, Monday through Friday.”

• Related: 7 Ridiculously Easy Hacks for Healthier Eating Habits            

If you want to use the habit stacking tool to have 5 minutes of silence after work, your Implementation Intention might be “I will have 5 minutes of silence after I put my work shoes in my closet, every day after work.”

How to Make an Implementation Intention Even More Effective

If you’re able to get even more specific with your Implementation Intention, then that’s even better, because then your mind will have a very clear picture of exactly what you will be doing. This makes it easier to develop a specific routine, which equates to forming a new habit.

So using the former example, your Implementation Intention might be, “I intend to eat a salad with colorful vegetables at work in the break room at 12:15 pm, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.”

You can see how that sets a much more clear and specific plan.

Having a clear, specific plan makes it easier on your brain go through with the new behavior, and therefore increases the likelihood of that behavior turning into a habit.

It makes sense if you think about it this way:

If you recently decided that you wanted to start going to the gym and you walked in, and saw that the dumbbells were disorganized. You then noticed that the classes each week differed in their days and times, and the cardio and weight machines were moved around to different parts of the gym every other week.

It would make it a little more difficult to stick with a routine, especially an efficient one that you would want to stick to.

Contrast that with walking into a gym where everything was in its place every day, the class schedules were consistent, the machines stayed in their locations (and the locations made logistical sense).

It would be much easier to form a routine and stick with it, especially since you would be able to move about the gym efficiently and get your workout in in a timely manner.

The same is true with habits. A habit is easier to form if there is a very specific plan for the behavior.

Clearing Up the Misconception About Willpower

A common roadblock to forming new habits is the misconception that you don’t have the willpower to do so.

Willpower is created within you, with every goal you set, or any new habit you want to form. It’s not a matter of genetics, or your ability to be “disciplined”. Here’s why.

Anytime you set a goal, it’s because you want the result. People don’t set goals if they don’t want the result of reaching that goal.

As a career woman, you’re probably used to setting many goals. If you think about each of the goals you’ve set, it’s because you wanted the result.

When you want a result, you automatically create the desire to drive your actions. That’s all willpower is. It’s just simply the desire that ends up driving your actions to reach your goal.

• Related: How To Use Challenges To Reach Your Goals       

If you find your willpower waning, you need to re-assess your goal. Is it still exciting or meaningful to you? Maybe, but maybe not. If not, how can you make your goal something that will excite you again?

If you want to form habits that make your life easier, you have to clear up your misconception about your willpower. If you believe you don’t have the willpower, you won’t be inclined to start new, healthier habits.

Final Notes

If you aim to increase the frequency and ease of doing a new behavior, try the habit stacking tool, set an Implementation Intention, and realize that you DO have willpower, then you’ll form habits that make your life easier, and reach your goals.