{"id":55781,"date":"2019-03-20T03:00:09","date_gmt":"2019-03-20T03:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusme.com\/?p=55781"},"modified":"2025-02-12T06:46:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T06:46:19","slug":"building-strong-and-powerful-habits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusme.com\/blog\/building-strong-and-powerful-habits\/","title":{"rendered":"The Big Guide To Building Strong And Powerful Habits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s start off with a nice quote. You might have heard this one before.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Not Aristotle<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The reason why I\u2019m saying \u2018not Aristotle\u2019 is that this quote is frequently misattributed to the famous Greek philosopher. The above quote is a 20th-century reinterpretation of something he DID say, which is:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cAs it is not one swallow or a fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u200a\u2014\u200aAristotle<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Now, whatever the amount of swallows or fine days or the origins of quotes, what I\u2019m trying to say is this:<\/p>\n<p>One good day does not equal long term success. It requires lots and lots of consecutive good days to get somewhere in life. It requires that you perform well on a daily basis.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"750\" height=\"625\" class=\"wp-image-55793\" src=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-16.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-16.jpeg 750w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-16-300x250.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>The Godfather of Philosophy knows what\u2019s up.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It is relatively easy for us to give something our all on one day, to completely put our mind to something and do a great job.<\/p>\n<p>What is harder is following up on this and doing it day after day. Because that uses up a lot of willpower, something many people lack.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why being a top performer requires you to build consistent habits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why some people seem to get so much done so easily<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A while ago, I read this book called Daily Rituals, by Mason Currey. The book is basically a collection of anecdotes about famous people, and it describes their daily habits and routines. I bought the book with the idea of finding out \u2018which were the perfect habits to become ultra-productive.<\/p>\n<p>But the thing was, all of these famous writers and artists each had so many different habits and routines, there didn\u2019t seem to be one best way. Some got up early and worked in the morning, others worked in the darkness of night. Some of them had teatime, others didn\u2019t. There didn\u2019t seem to be any best way. It made me think that every one of them had found a habit that was exactly perfect for them. But that meant I was still in the mindset of \u2018perfect habits\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>After a while, it dawned on me. It wasn\u2019t any specific habit that these people had that made them successful and famous. It was simply the fact that <strong>they had habits<\/strong> that was helping them. All of them had a daily to-do list which they followed in a religious manner. This made their day predictable and automatic. They knew what they were supposed to be doing at any given moment each day, without having to consciously think about it.<\/p>\n<p>If you take a look at successful people, the thing that always keeps coming back is that their day goes by in an orderly fashion, and they stick to habits.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever you do, creating habit and routine is obviously THE KEY to being successful.<\/p>\n<p>Let me illustrate that with a theoretical example.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine if you wanted to become a guitar player, and preferably, a really good one. Now imagine if you were able to make it a habit of practising consistently for two hours per day. If you kept up that habit for ten years, you\u2019d end up being a pretty good player, right? Even without any special talent or musical education, someone who practices that much will most likely end up being a pretty good guitarist. It\u2019s more or less a guaranteed outcome.<\/p>\n<p>Same goes for writing. If you write a 1000 words each day, you\u2019ll end up writing multiple novels per year. Still, so many authors find it hard to be productive. It\u2019s easy to get started writing, to have an idea and write those first few pages. But unless you make that writing into a habit, you will never finish your book.<\/p>\n<p>One last example: studying. When I look back at my college years, what made studying hard wasn\u2019t necessarily the fact that the course material was too complex to understand. What made it hard to get good grades was the fact that I never was able to consistently get myself to open my books and go over my notes. During exam periods, I could have a good day and study eight hours, using up all my willpower. But doing this on many consecutive days was pretty much impossible.<\/p>\n<p>Because I wasn\u2019t able to make a habit out of studying, my grades weren\u2019t what they could\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How to make your brain work for you<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Think of habits as a behavioural autopilot, an automatic script that your brain automatically executes in a certain situation. You probably already have lots of habits that you aren\u2019t even aware of. For example, when you put on your shoes, it\u2019s very likely that you\u2019ll always put on one certain side first, either the left or the right. That\u2019s not something you consciously decide every day, it\u2019s a habit that you created for yourself.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t merely the case for tying your shoelaces either. It goes for every possible imaginable task, be it brushing your teeth or something more complex like studying.<\/p>\n<p>You can have the most boring, unattractive task, something that you really, really hate to do. It causes you to procrastinate endlessly. Whatever it is, it doesn\u2019t matter. Once you establish it as a strong habit, you\u2019ll have an unstoppable urge to perform this task. It will actually take you conscious effort and willpower NOT to do it.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s more, our brain actually CRAVES habits. Having to think about things all the time requires energy (remember that a large part of the calories that we eat are used to power our brain). From an evolutionary point of view, our body wants to be as energy efficient as possible, because using up a lot of energy isn\u2019t very good survival-wise. It used to be that food was scarce, and if you used up a lot of energy every day, you were more likely to starve. So when our brain creates habits, it also becomes more energy efficient.<\/p>\n<p>So, let me explain to you how habits work in our brain.<\/p>\n<p>For this, we need to be aware of the critical elements of a habit. These are<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a cue<\/li>\n<li>a routine<\/li>\n<li>a reward<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>First, there\u2019s the cue. This is the trigger that causes the behaviour to start.<\/p>\n<p>Second, there\u2019s the routine (which is the habit itself).<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there\u2019s a reward. This is what your brain uses to imprint this routine into itself and to make sure you repeat it in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Now, when you tried to do something on a regular basis (let\u2019s take studying as an example), you most likely focused on the second part: the routine itself. This sounds logical because it\u2019s the behaviour that you\u2019re trying to implement. However, that\u2019s actually the wrong way to go about it.<\/p>\n<p>For example, you might say to yourself: \u2018From now on, I\u2019m going to study for two hours every day\u2019. Then one day, you start studying at 2 PM. The next day, it\u2019s 4 PM. The day after, it\u2019s 9 AM. And so for each of these days, there is no single cue when to start. There is no consistent trigger, no environmental cue that tells your brain to take action.<\/p>\n<p>That means that you have to take conscious action to start studying every day. In turn, this means you\u2019ll require willpower.<\/p>\n<p>The second piece that\u2019s missing is the lack of a reward. You would just finish studying and be done with it, without giving yourself a pat on the back or a little gift. So unless you find studying very intrinsically rewarding, there won\u2019t really be any motivator present. And our brain craves these rewards. Rewarding yourself causes little rushes of dopamine, which is what causes addiction. This dopamine is what gets us addicted to things like food and cigarettes. Have you ever had to use willpower to eat, or to light up a smoke? Unless the food wasn\u2019t very appetizing or you dislike the taste of tobacco, I highly doubt it. On the contrary, for people who are addicted to food or cigarettes, it\u2019s extremely hard <strong>not<\/strong> to eat or <strong>not <\/strong>to smoke.<\/p>\n<p>So, in effect, by adding a reward to a behaviour, you can make yourself \u2018addicted\u2019 to it. This allows you to remove willpower from the equation.<\/p>\n<p>To create a habit, instead of focusing on the behaviour itself, you should <strong>focus on the cue and on the reward.<\/strong> When you consistently have the same cue, behaviour, and reward, your basal ganglia will start to associate these three, and join them together. It\u2019s as if you were a self-programming robot.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1920\" class=\"wp-image-55794\" src=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-150x150.jpeg 150w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-300x300.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-768x768.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-1024x1024.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-500x500.jpeg 500w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-1000x1000.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-17-100x100.jpeg 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Image credit: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.briandcruzhypnoplus.com\/\">BD Hypno Plus<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Habits, just another way of making your brain work for you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 1 &#8211; Choose a behaviour<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is pretty straightforward. You probably have a certain task that you have to do or want to do. Only problem, you can\u2019t get yourself to do it consistently without summoning massive amounts of willpower. The sink is full of dirty plates, but you really don\u2019t feel like washing the dishes. You\u2019ve got an important exam next week, and somehow it just seems impossible to do more than five pages each day. You\u2019re working on a novel, but you can\u2019t get yourself to consistently hit your daily word target.<\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019ve stated before, willpower is a limited resource, so once you\u2019ve used it up after a hard day\u2019s work, the chances of you performing a task will be close to zero. So it\u2019s important that you automate these tasks, with no conscious effort required.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 2 &#8211; Choose a cue<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is what has to trigger your brain into performing the habit. The most obvious way to set a cue is to use a certain time of day. For example, if you want to start an exercise habit, make 5PM your exercise time.<\/p>\n<p>A cue doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be time based, though. It can also be environmental. For example, if your stomach is full after eating, that can also be your cue to start washing the dishes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1153\" class=\"wp-image-55795\" src=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-18.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-18.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-18-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-18-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-18-1024x577.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-18-1000x563.jpeg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>A certain time of day can serve as a triggering cue for you to perform a habit<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Once you set a consistent cue that precedes a certain routine behaviour, your brain will start to associate this cue with the behaviour. Once that happens, the cue will automatically start to trigger this behaviour, without any conscious effort from your part. You\u2019ll just start on autopilot.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 3 &#8211; Choose a reward<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Finally, you need something that tells your brain: \u2018this routine behaviour is good, do it again\u2019. Your brain has to learn to associate the behaviour with positive feedback, a reward that causes a little dopamine rush. This reward can be anything, but it doesn\u2019t have to be big. You can reward yourself with a cookie, a cup of tea or whatever it is that you find rewarding. Make sure that the reward is always the same. If you give yourself a cookie on one day, a piece of chocolate the next, and an apple the day after that, you\u2019ll just confuse your brain and you won\u2019t learn the habit in the most effective manner.<\/p>\n<p>Now, these rewards are extrinsic rewards, things that don\u2019t naturally follow out of the act itself. But a behaviour can be intrinsically rewarding as well. Just performing the behaviour by itself can be rewarding enough, without the need to give yourself something tangible afterwards. The best example of this is exercise. If you workout, you get a dopamine rush which makes you feel pretty good. You might also feel really good about yourself after you\u2019ve studied a chapter in your book, a boost of satisfaction and pride.<\/p>\n<p>That being said, if you think an activity still needs a bit of an extra reward, you give yourself something extra to increase the <strong>\u2018reward value\u2019<\/strong> of the routine.<\/p>\n<p>Now, here\u2019s the cool part: over time, the reward will induce a <strong>craving<\/strong>. Because you crave the reward, you\u2019ll automatically start to perform the behaviour. Because of that, after a while, you don\u2019t even need the reward anymore.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s because your brain has started to associate the behaviour itself, not just the reward, with the happy feeling. The brain has learned to anticipate the reward, and it is merely this anticipation which induces a dopamine shot.<\/p>\n<p>So, to create a habit, choose a cue, a habit, and a reward, and use them consistently every day. In the beginning, you\u2019ll still have to use a lot of willpower. However, it gets easier every time you do it. Each time you perform the behaviour, your brain will start to clump the cue, the behaviour and the reward closer together, and over time you\u2019ll end up with an automatic habit that requires no mental effort whatsoever.<\/p>\n<p>One warning though: don\u2019t try to create too many habits at once. If you try to do too much at once, you WILL fail. Focus on one habit at a time, stick to it for a while, and once that habit is firmly implanted into your brain, go on to the next one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But first, find your keystone habit<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A keystone habit? Now, what\u2019s that, you might ask?<\/p>\n<p>Well, let me explain. You might have a ton of habits that you want to implement. However, these could vary from washing the dishes, brushing your teeth or studying one hour each and every day.<\/p>\n<p>Now, these are all fine habits to have, but not all of them have the same impact on your life. There are certain habits, which differ from person to person, that function as a sort of launchpad. A keystone habit is a habit that has the power to completely change the way you view yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Let me give you an example.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine, you\u2019ve hit rock bottom. You\u2019ve never accomplished much in your life, you\u2019re unemployed, have thousands of dollars in credit card debt, you\u2019re severely overweight and you\u2019re also a chain smoker.<\/p>\n<p>In this scenario, making a habit of brushing your teeth might not have a great effect on improving your life. But what if you started exercising consistently? You\u2019re starting to look better, you\u2019re feeling better, you\u2019re getting stronger and faster. All of a sudden, you\u2019re thinking: \u2018Hey, I might not be such a low-life bum after all!\u2019 Then you decide to start implementing another habit: writing a job application every day.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1360\" class=\"wp-image-55796\" src=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-19.jpeg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-19.jpeg 2048w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-19-300x199.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-19-768x510.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-19-1024x680.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/focusme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/word-image-19-1000x664.jpeg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>By the end of the year, you\u2019ve got nice abs AND you\u2019re earning 50K. From there on out, the sky&#8217;s the limit.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A keystone habit serves as a catalyst to change the way you feel about yourself, and a catalyst to start implementing other habits to improve your life.<\/p>\n<p>For many people, exercise is their keystone habit. But what if you\u2019re already pretty athletic? In your case, exercise might not have the same psychological effect. An alternative keystone habit might then be to save money every month and restore your financial health.<\/p>\n<p>The thing about keystone habits is: they differ from person to person. If you want to identify your own keystone habit, you need to find something that has a strong emotional link. Again, washing the dishes after every meal might not qualify (although in some people it could). Ideally, a keystone habit is something that scares you a bit. It should feel like a challenge, so once you\u2019ve overcome it, it increases your confidence and self-esteem by a significant amount.<\/p>\n<p>A keystone habit is generally something that changes the way you see yourself and allows you to believe that you can change. If you\u2019ve always been messy, and you start making a habit of cleaning up, you transform your outlook from \u2018that\u2019s just the way I am\u2019 into \u2018If I can change that, I can change anything!\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Find a keystone habit, implement it, and use that as a lever create lots of automatic, powerful habits that have the power to completely transform your life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>To conclude<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No doubt you finally understand how important habits are. They shape our day, they shape our lives, and they shape who we are. You are what you repeatedly do, remember?<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a suggestion for a habit that will most certainly make a huge difference, as it has for many. Install FocusMe and block social media each time you start work. Making a habit out of this will certainly increase your productivity manifold.<\/p>\n<p>Create habits, take willpower out of the equation, and you\u2019re on the right track to getting lots of work done.<\/p>\n<p>Remember to create good habits and eradicate the bad ones. Wanna know how? See <a href=\"https:\/\/focusme.com\/blog\/how-to-get-rid-of-bad-habits\/\">How to Get Rid of Bad Habits<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>See you next time,<\/p>\n<p>Jon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s start off with a nice quote. You might have heard this one before. \u201cWe are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.\u201d Not Aristotle The reason why I\u2019m saying \u2018not Aristotle\u2019 is that this quote is frequently misattributed to the famous Greek philosopher. The above quote is a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":55797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,8],"tags":[76,77,10],"class_list":["post-55781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-habits","category-productivity","tag-good-habits","tag-lifestyle","tag-productivity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Build Powerful Habits for Success<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover how habits shape success, why willpower isn&#039;t enough, and how to create lasting routines using cues, rewards, and consistency.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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