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The theory behind habit formation

Author: Jadwiga Bożek

Whether you are striving to adopt a healthier lifestyle, enhance your professional productivity, or cultivate sport-specific routines, the art of habit formation plays a central role in reaching these goals. Habits are routines that have become automatic, they emerge unconsciously.



Atomic Habits

Habits form through consistent repetition of specific actions within familiar contexts. Over time, these behaviors become automatic, triggered by recognizable cues. Through repeated practice and associative learning, we start to think less about doing the actions, and they can even become unconscious. For example, consider the habit of drinking a glass of water right after waking up. After some time of repeating this action, a morning alarm and sunlight can become a cue for automatically reaching out for a glass of water. Knowing how habits are formed, working on implementing them might be a bit easier. Gardner et al. (2012) described three main phases of habit formation: initiation phase, learning phase, and stability phase.

Initiation Phase

The whole journey begins with the initiation phase. The initiation phase is the selection of the behavior to be implemented and its corresponding context. There are a few significant points that one needs to keep in mind when creating their habit formation plan. First, it is crucial to choose a daily encounterable context. For example, opting for a post-work walk or post-wake-up stretching routine. Secondly, creating this habit plan by yourself is vital – research suggests that internal motivation for behavioral change is more effective than external demands for change. Lastly, there is no point in trying to start with big changes. For a person who rarely goes for a walk, it would be unrealistic to plan a 5km walk after work. It is better to plan out much shorter walks and be consistent. After a while, the habit of walking after work will become natural and they can aim for longer walks. However, starting with big plans has a high chance of failing in the learning phase.

Learning Phase

The learning phase is the phase of learning the habit. Every time you encounter the chosen cue, do the action you matched with it. It should get easier over time and according to Gardner et al. (2012), within 10 consistent weeks, the habit is formed. With that, the stability phase begins, where the habit is learned and requires minimal effort. This method requires 10 weeks of motivation, but rewards with long-term results, as after 10 weeks the behavior should start occurring naturally. When aiming to break a bad habit, the strategy should differ. Bad habits are also reinforced by specific contextual cues. The initial step involves identifying the situations in which the bad habit typically occurs and recognizing the common contexts. Once the cue is identified, it’s advisable to replace the undesirable habit with a healthier alternative. Opting for a simple ‘not doing’ approach demands more self-control and may be less effective. Transforming the bad habit into a better one still requires significant internal motivation, however, like forming positive habits, the association between the cue and the healthier habit tends to strengthen over time. This can eventually overshadow the bad habit association. Another option for overcoming bad habits involves eliminating contexts where the cue is present. While this method can be highly beneficial, it is not always possible, particularly when certain cues, such as stress, might be unavoidable.

What about bad habits?

But did you ever wonder why bad habits slip into our routines effortlessly, while building good habits requires all these phases and motivation? Neuroscience sheds some light on this. Bad habits offer instant satisfaction, while good habits take more time to show their rewards. As humans, we often prefer to have an instant reward, such as the instant feeling of pleasure coming from eating junk food. Delayed rewards, that can take weeks to show, such as the benefits of adhering to a healthy diet, pose a greater challenge for our patience and motivation.

Unlock the Power of Positive Habits

While forming positive habits is a challenge, and it may even seem like our brains are resisting change, the benefits are worth it. The incorporation of small, healthy habits can not only decrease the risk of diseases but also decrease stress and even increase longevity (Dyer, 2023). In short, forming good habits can be a valuable, small investment for a longer and stress-free life.

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