Why do our resolutions to change our behaviors so often fail to stick?
Let’s say you want to adopt a new practice of blogging every morning. Maybe you just read something that helped you realize the benefits of such a routine. You’re inspired to get started. So the next morning, you blog. But, the morning after that, you’re frazzled from the long night prior, so you forget. On the third morning, for no particular reason, you forget again.
And just like that, your resolution has been abandoned and your moment of inspiration was in vain.
What happened? The problem is that inspiration has a half-life. It decays over time. For a new practice to outlive the inspiration that initiated it, it must become habitual. So while you’re inspired, seize the moment to deliberately plan how you’re going to turn your new practice into a habit.
Habits are mentally ingrained behavioral responses to stimuli or “cues.” When setting out to build a new habit, it really helps to be specific about the cue on which you are going to “hang it.” A good question to ask yourself is: What is the experience that will prompt my new practice?
For example, here are some potential cues for morning blogging:
Entering your home office for the first time in the morning
Opening your laptop for the first time in the morning
Finishing your morning email check
Serving yourself your morning cup of coffee
To make your new practice a daily one, it is key for your cue to be something that is already a daily habit itself. This is called “habit stacking.”
It also helps to be very specific about the behavioral response you want to make habitual. If you’re vague about what you want to do and how you want to do it, when your cue arises, you may not have the clear direction you need to proceed (especially if you’re groggy or otherwise befuddled). So another key question to answer is: What are the exact physical actions I will do following my cue?
For example, if you’re a writer who likes to “wing it,” you might resolve to “turn on my computer, open my internet browser, click on my Substack bookmark, start a new post, add a title, write the content, and publish the post.”
Or if you’re more of a planner, you might resolve to “open my word processing app, brainstorm post topics, pick one, brainstorm ideas within that topic, organize my ideas into an outline, use my outline to draft a post,” etc.
If you’re reluctant to be that detailed about it, at least decide on (1) the very first action to kick it all off (like turning on your computer) and (2) the very last action that will indicate you’re done (like publishing the post). In addition to your starting pistol (your cue), at least give yourself clear starting and finish lines.
By pairing your cue with your response, you can form what psychologists call an “implementation intention.”
For example, you could write: “If I enter my home office for the first time in the morning, then I will turn on my computer, open my internet browser, click on my Substack bookmark, start a new post, add a title, write the content, and publish the post.”
Or a less detailed one might be: “If I enter my home office for the first time in the morning, then I will turn on my computer and work on a blog post until I publish it.”
Studies have shown that the mere act of writing implementation intentions drastically increases the chances of them coming true. It’s like a magic spell for self-regulation, or entering a conditional statement into your psyche’s command line interface.
So, to make your resolution to adopt a new practice stick:
Decide which already-existing habit will be your cue.
Decide what exactly your response will be.
Use your cue and response to write an implementation intention.
This is one way to convert evanescent inspiration into lasting change for the better.