Habit

 

Habit hab·​it | \ ˈha-bət \

Definition’

1. From Middle English habit, from Latin habitus (“condition, bearing, state, appearance, dress, attire”), from habeō (“I have, hold, keep”). Replaced Middle English abit, from Old French abit, itself from the same Latin source.
2. a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior
3. an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary

                                                                                             (Merriam Webster, Wiktionary)

    Habit is the whole thing defined in our life; almost 50% of our life is the cycle of our habit. We thought that in our daily life we always pick our decision. It all just a matter of automatization. Most of our whole life activities lead by our subconscious mind. For illustrates, when we wake up directly, we reach our phone start to scroll our email or notifications. Then continued by making coffee or taking a shower then do our works. Even brushing our teeth and driving our car to work, our subconscious mind will be taking control. For the “successful people,” we have known them for their structured and perfect habits. They consciously wake up with great feeling, pray, gratitude, put on their shoes, start with their sports routines, and lead the whole day.

    In this situation, have you ever ask,” how these happened?”. “Why, for some people, it looks soo easy to reach this point, and for you, why it will work for two days only?” This a complicated process; it comes through stimulus, reward, and many other factors. The aim is to reach the automatic operation through the reward. As living entities, we have been systemized easier to pick negative habit than the positive habit.

    How does it work? Nowadays, many influencers conduct a comprehensive module to help us adapt n hold on this new habit. We are familiar with the 21 days magic number, which said we would effectively create this new habit for 21 days of practice. Many articles claimed after 21 days we practiced; you will automatically create new habits; smoking, jogging, or even eating healthy food. Our ability to maintain this new behavior for 21 days is a significant effect, so if you leave one day, you have to re-do the new action. Ha! So how and where do these 21 days theories come from? I ended up this literature research by a super incomplete understanding of these theories. However, I could find a brief explanation of these things. It comes from the book of Dr. Maxwell Maltz titled Psycho-cybernetics. He is a plastic surgeon. Through his patient’s experience; it requires a minimum of about 21 days any perceptible change in a mental image. For example, it takes about 21 days for his patient to get used to her new implant breast, new face, or even phantom limb. In 21 days old mental images will dissolve to a new one. The idea is about the self-image not described as a habit. Nevertheless, our self-image and our habits tend to go together, so if we change one of them, it will automatically change the other. (Maxwell, p108)

    Besides, another researcher comes from psychology conducted a study of habit formation (Lally, van Jaarsveld, Potts, & Wardle, 2010) found it took an average of 66 days for the habit to form. Eventually, there were quite large differences among the participants, some of them can adapt the new habit just in 18days, another one couldn’t get it even after 84 days, but it turns well after 254days. There also variations on each participant, and another factor is the difficulty of the tasks. For simple behavior, it quicker to adapt than the complex one. The bottom line is it’s a myth for 21 days figure. The habit formation duration is so self-made, depends on our characters, the activities, experiences, and way of life. 

    But Charles Duhigg wrote in his book “The Power of Habit” said that we need three main factors; stimulus, behavior, and the new habits. The stimulus is caused by an element of reforming the new habit. The reward is the result of the behavior. The good feeling will help us maintain a good feeling, which he explained as Habit Loop. Cognition is an inclusive process of mind; it started with the sensorimotor processing, that information gathered from the sensory transferred to the brain, and the result it response appeared. The brain will respond to this behavior, and the brain activated the representation as a reward/punishment. After some repetition, our brain will pick these things as a habit. For illustration, when we are going to the cinema, watching a film as a habit, we will be watching and eating popcorn, while at home we will be watching movies without popcorn.

William James, an American psychologist who wrote the book titled Habit, suggested four steps to create a new habit;

Good Start

As we know, making a new habit is difficult. As a consequence of this, we need to plan things. Briefly visualize the new habit, start it with a full charge of motivations, and avoid unpleasant things. 

Practice

To make routines, we need extra effort, especially if it’s a good habit—our mind tent to hack ourselves to step out of our comfort zones. The start will easy task, gradually create a more significant job until we can make sure it became ourselves. Even if it’s just a 1% improvement, and also acknowledge the activities. Consciously involved in the new activities and feel the pleasure when you succeed in doing it. 

Choose Good Environment

External factors are having a prominent role in our daily life. The situation is conditioning us to act in a certain way. Sometimes even holding us, really hard to get up and take control of our life. For example, a study student who moved to another city because of the exchanging program will be successful in developing a new habit that they see in another place they go to. 

Don’t stop when the result came.

People will stop the diet and continue to eat sweet and oily food when they saw they reached their goal. Habit is consistent, and there is no effect when we lost our track. It won’t contribute to long term goals if we leave these routines in the middle of time. A bunch of repetitions will make the habit stronger. Scientists said this habit appeared while our brain was repeatedly searching for instant ways to create this new behavior. 

Indra P. Dewi. 2020. Tranform. Yogyakarta. Psikologi Corner