How do you form a good habit? How do you maintain it? How do you stop a bad habit?
There is rich content on the topic, and while I’ve consumed much of it, I still feel there is so much more to consume. The biggest learnings, though, come from doing versus reading. Over the years, I have actively tried to stop bad habits and adopt good habits. Mostly related to health goals but not only. In this post, I want to share the #1 tip I have found to work: Visual Cues!
In fact, it is so simple that it feels even silly to write about it. Often, though, the simplest strategies are the best ones. What is a visual cue? It’s an object, a picture, a symbol, a written word somewhere that helps to remind you of what you have decided to do. Often, a visual cue has to be actually ‘invisible’. The easiest way to explain them is to talk with examples:
- Let’s assume you want to eat healthier and specifically reduce or eliminate the amount of processed sugar (the type of sugar not found organically in food, such as in fruit) you eat. You can apply all the discipline you want, but you will not make it if you have all kinds of sweets lying around at home. We are humans and are good at succumbing to external temptations. Therefore, removing temptations (this is an invisible cue) from your home will help a ton!
- Let’s continue with the eating healthier goal and assume you want to increase the frequency and quantity of more nutritious foods. You can try to remind yourself all you want, but you need a visual cue. That can be vegetables and fruits placed prominently in your home or on the top shelves of the fridge. Another thing that works for me is always having fruit when working and putting it on my desk.
- Let’s assume you want to develop the habit of doing pushups every day (the number or the type of exercise doesn’t matter). Doing pushups, especially if you’re not used to it, can feel a drain, and your brain and body will not want to do it. But you have decided, so you need to create the environment to do it. One tactic that worked for me in the past was putting a Post-it note in my bathroom mirror titled “Daily Push-ups.” Every time I did my push-ups, I noted it on the Post-it.
- Let’s assume you want to up-skill yourself and follow training courses within your work day. Assuming you use a digital or physical calendar, the visual cue would be to enter it and plan it on your calendar as something to do. If you’re not a calendar person, you must have some system to get things done. You need to get creative and find your version of the visual cue.
You will not need visual cues forever, but in the beginning stages of trying to form a good habit or stop a bad habit, you will benefit from them. For example, I don’t need a Post-it anymore to do pushups almost daily; it’s just part of what I do. It’s a habit. I don’t get easily tempted to go for processed sugar, as I don’t need it anymore.
Again, this tactic seems so simple, but it’s so often forgotten.
