What are Habits?

“Kick the oil habit (WNBR Brighton 2010)” by Peter O’Connor aka anemoneprojectors is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Contents

Habits

Habits are things you do over and over, often without thinking much about them. They can be helpful (like brushing your teeth) or unhelpful (like scrolling your phone late at night). Habits save your brain energy by turning repeated actions into automatic routines.

What a habit is

A habit is usually made of three parts:

Cue – something that starts it (time of day, place, emotion, person).
Action – what you do (eat a snack, check your phone, go for a walk).
Result – how it makes you feel (comfort, boredom relief, pleasure, distraction).

Your brain learns: “When this cue happens, do this action, to get this result.” Over time, it runs the pattern with less and less effort.

Why habits matter

Habits shape your life more than big, rare decisions.

Good habits quietly support your health, mood, and goals.
Bad habits quietly pull you away from what you want.

Because they’re automatic, you may not notice how much they affect:

Your energy (sleep, food, movement habits).
Your mind (social media, news, worry habits).
Your self-respect (keeping or breaking promises to yourself).

How habits form

Habits often form when:

You repeat something in the same context (same place, same time, same feeling).
It gives a payoff (even a small one), like relief, pleasure, or escape.

For example:

Feeling stressed (cue) → eat sweets (action) → brief comfort (result).
Feeling lonely (cue) → scroll phone (action) → distraction (result).

Do this a few times, and your brain starts to jump straight from the cue to the action.

Building helpful habits

You don’t need huge changes. Small, easy steps work best.

Pick one habit at a time: Choose something simple, like:

Drinking a glass of water after waking up.
Stretching for 3 minutes after work.
Writing one sentence in a journal each night.

Attach it to something you already do

“After I brush my teeth, I drink water.”
“After I sit at my desk, I take three deep breaths.”

The old habit becomes the cue for the new one.

Make it very small and easy: Aim for “too easy to fail”:

2 push-ups, not a full workout.
1 page read, not a whole chapter.
1 minute of tidy-up, not the whole house.

Repeat in the same context: Same time, same place, same trigger. This trains your brain faster.

Notice and celebrate – Each time you do it, give yourself a mental nod: “I did that.” This small sense of success helps the habit stick.

Changing unhelpful habits

Instead of just trying to “stop,” it helps to understand and swap the habit.

Notice the cue and result: Ask:

“When do I usually do this?” (time, place, feeling)
“What does it give me?” (comfort, break, numbness, reward)

Keep the cue and result, swap the action: Example:

Cue: stress, Result: relief.
Instead of: smoking or doom-scrolling.
Try: 10 deep breaths, short walk, writing one line about how you feel.

It won’t feel as “good” at first, but with repetition your brain can learn the new pattern.

Make it harder to do the old habit

Put your phone in another room at night.
Don’t keep trigger snacks within easy reach.
Change your route if it passes a tempting place.

Less friction for the new habit, more friction for the old one.

Expect slips—and keep going: Slipping back once or twice does not erase the progress. Ask: “What was the cue? What can I change next time?” then resume.

Habits and self-respect

Habits are closely linked to how you feel about yourself:

Keeping small, healthy habits builds self-trust: “When I say I’ll do something for myself, I follow through.”
Repeatedly breaking your own promises can harm your self-respect and feed harsh self-talk.

Start tiny. One or two trustworthy habits are better than a long list you can’t keep.

Gentle reminders

You learned many habits as ways to cope or survive. They’re not proof you’re bad or weak.
You don’t have to fix everything at once; one small shift can start a chain of better changes.
Every time you choose a habit that supports your health, calm, and truth, you are quietly changing the direction of your life.

In plain terms: habits are the repeated steps your life walks in every day. By changing a few steps, you change where you end up.