Free tool · Habits
How habits are built, and how they are broken.
James Clear set out four steps for building a habit in Atomic Habits, and four for breaking one that are the exact reverse. Here is what each step means, with examples from life on a GLP-1.
Why it is four steps
Every habit runs through the same four stages. Something cues it, you want it, you do it, and you get something out of it. A habit you want to keep needs all four stages working in its favour, and a habit you want to lose needs them working against it. That is why the two lists below are mirror images of each other. If you can only get to one of the four, the third one does the most work, because most habits fail at the point of starting rather than the point of wanting.
The cue
What starts the habit. It is usually something in front of you rather than a decision you made.
To build a habit
Make it obvious
Put what you need where you will see it at the moment you need it, and settle when and where it happens before the day starts.
- Keep the water bottle on your desk instead of in the kitchen, so the reminder is in front of you all afternoon.
- Put the shaker and the scoop next to the coffee machine the night before.
- Set your injection day as a repeating alarm rather than something you keep track of yourself.
To break one
Make it invisible
Take the cue out of your surroundings, rather than seeing it forty times a day and relying on saying no each time.
- The food you graze on in the evening does not come into the house, rather than going into a higher cupboard.
- Unfollow the accounts that leave you wanting to order something.
- Charge your phone outside the bedroom if late scrolling is what is costing you sleep.
The craving
Whether you actually want to do it. A habit you dread will not last, however sensible it looks written down.
To build a habit
Make it attractive
Pair the habit with something you already look forward to, and pick the version of it you like rather than the version that scores best.
- Save the podcast you actually want for the walk, so the walk becomes when you get to hear it.
- Buy the protein you like the taste of. The one with the better numbers is worth nothing sitting in the cupboard.
- Build meals out of food you would have chosen anyway, rather than food you are getting through.
To break one
Make it unattractive
Get specific about what the habit costs you, in your own words, so the cost is as vivid to you as the appeal.
- Write down what it actually costs you the next morning, and read that back at the moment you are deciding.
- Pay attention to the hour afterward rather than the few minutes during, which is usually where the honest answer is.
The response
The habit itself, and how much effort it takes to start it.
To build a habit
Make it easy
Shrink it until starting takes almost nothing. A habit has to exist before it can grow, and the first version only has to be small enough to happen.
- Make the first version about two minutes long. A five minute walk that happens beats a planned 45 minute one that does not.
- Cook the protein once for the week, so a protein-first meal takes a minute instead of half an hour.
- Appetite and energy move around a lot on a GLP-1, so set the habit at the size you could manage on a bad week rather than a good one.
To break one
Make it difficult
Put steps between you and the habit, so it takes a decision rather than a reflex.
- Keep it out of the house, so it needs a trip to the shop rather than a walk to the kitchen.
- Delete the app instead of relying on willpower every evening.
The reward
What you get for doing it, and whether it arrives soon enough to matter.
To build a habit
Make it satisfying
Give yourself something you can see today. The health payoff is months out, and that is too far away to keep you going this week.
- Mark the day off somewhere you can see the run of days building up.
- Track something other than weight, such as the number of days you hit your protein, because the scale will not move on plenty of the days you did everything right.
- Notice what improved this week that is not a number, such as fewer afternoon crashes or getting up the stairs without stopping.
To break one
Make it unsatisfying
Attach a cost that arrives immediately, because the real cost of the habit is years away and your brain is not moved by it.
- Tell someone who will ask you about it, so skipping costs you something today.
- Keep the record honest on the days you did not do it. A gap you can see is uncomfortable in a useful way.
Worth doing first
Tie it to something you already do without thinking
The usual reason a new habit does not happen is not that someone was unwilling. It is that nothing reminded them at the moment it needed to happen. You already do dozens of things every day without deciding to, and each one is a reminder you never forget. Attaching the new habit to one of them borrows that reliability instead of asking you to supply it. James Clear calls this habit stacking, and it is the practical version of making a habit obvious.
Pick an anchor that happens at the same point every day and that you would notice if you skipped, such as putting the coffee on, brushing your teeth, or putting your bag down when you get in. Avoid anchors like "in the mornings" or "when I get a chance", because those are stretches of time rather than events, and they are the ones people forget.
After I [something you already do without thinking], I will [the new habit, in its smallest version].
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The part people skip
Someone who is expecting to hear from you
A habit only you know about has a problem built into it. Skipping pays you back straight away, in time or effort saved, while the cost of it turns up months later if it turns up at all. Telling one person changes that arithmetic, because now there is a small cost today. In a review of goal setting studies, goals people made public did better than goals they kept to themselves.
It does not have to be formal, and they do not have to be working on the same thing as you. What makes the difference is one named person rather than a group, a set day they check in, and one specific question they ask, such as whether you hit five days this week. General encouragement does very little. Someone who asks you for a number does a great deal.
If there is nobody obvious, the community is a reasonable place to find one, and a coach does this job by design.
One last thing
Missing a day is not starting over
One missed day does not undo what you have built. In the study that followed people taking up a new daily habit, missing a single opportunity had no measurable effect on how automatic the behaviour eventually became. You did not reset anything, and you are not back at the beginning.
What actually costs people the habit is what happens after the missed day, because it is easy to decide the run is ruined and stop altogether. The rule James Clear gives for this is never to miss twice. The day after a missed day is worth more than the day you missed, so that is the one to turn up for.
Sources
6 references
- Clear J. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery, 2018. The four steps, their reverse, habit stacking, and the rule about not missing twice. The explanations and all of the examples above are ours.
- Lally P, van Jaarsveld CHM, Potts HWW, Wardle J. How are habits formed: modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2010;40(6):998–1009. doi:10.1002/ejsp.674. Source of the finding that one missed opportunity had no measurable effect on habit formation, and of the 66 day median before a new behaviour felt automatic, which ranged from 18 days to 254 across individuals.
- Gollwitzer PM, Sheeran P. Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. 2006;38:69–119. doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1. The evidence behind deciding when and where up front, which is what the sentence builder above is for.
- Wood W, Neal DT. A new look at habits and the habit-goal interface. Psychological Review. 2007;114(4):843–863. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.114.4.843. Why habits are triggered by the situation you are in rather than by deciding again each time, which is the reason the first step is about your surroundings.
- Wood W, Rünger D. Psychology of habit. Annual Review of Psychology. 2016;67:289–314. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417. A review of how habits form and why changing the surroundings works better than trying harder.
- Epton T, Currie S, Armitage CJ. Unique effects of setting goals on behavior change: systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 2017;85(12):1182–1198. doi:10.1037/ccp0000260. Source of the finding that goals made public did better than goals kept private.
Coaching
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Knowing the four steps is the easy part. Working out which one your habit is failing at, and being the person who asks you about it on a set day, is where coaching helps.
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