Trick Yourself into Developing Your Desired Habits

The Inspiration

A few days ago I wrote about a some of my tips and tricks to overcome my laziness in life. Well, I just came back from a workout, during which I thought of fifteen new ideas for a follow-up post. I forgot thirteen of them of my way back, so here are the remaining two before my brain stops working completely:

1. The more I observe the people around me and monitor my own behavior, the more I realize that humans are creatures of habit. It is truly amazing how powerful habit is. Humans can adapt to pretty much anything, so the question for young people is really what they want to adapt to and what they want to make a habit of.

 

2. You are who you spend your time around. That is, you will adopt the spending, eating, drinking, working, etc. habits of the people around you, especially if you are good friends with them. Therefore, you should surround yourself with people whose habits you like and admire because they will almost certainly pass on their habits to you.

 

3. This is a not a third point, but a synthesis and conclusion:  if there are people in your life whose habits you do not like and do not want to adapt, you should either limit the time you spend with them or explicitly voice your concerns so that they can curb those habits or behaviors when they are around you. For example, you can say something like this: “I am really trying to save money right now and you are buying $200 leather purses (for guys: cameras), so will you please not parade them around me because that will either make me really jealous and hate you or spend my hard-earned money on something I do not value? Thanks! I love you, girl! Cute shoes!”

The Habit I Adapted

In addition to general laziness, I am also very lazy with working out. Seriously, I hate working out. Exerting any kind of physical pressure with my body is usually very hard for me, so getting ready to go to the gym is a nightmare.

However, I have been adapting to the gym habits of a very good friend of mine, who is also a co-worker. She is gym-crazy and recently told me that she was not always like this. In high school, she felt the same horror towards working out as I do now. However, she persevered with it and made a habit out of working out. And by “made a habit”, I mean it became one of her habits that is now hard to shake (how you frame it is important).

So by watching her go to the gym every day after work for two months, I could not help myself but start going to gym. And when I do not want to go (every time), I still do because it is becoming a regular habit. With each after-work gym trip, my brain learns the act of going to the gym and reinforces it as a habit (I just made this neurological process up, but that is how I feel it happen). The more I go, the more likely I am to continue going. Every trip counts.

My Habit That Was Adapted

Curiously enough, I also made her stop spending so much money on clothes, open a Roth IRA and cut back on morning Starbucks. God, I love strong Pareto efficient exchanges.