Make or Break Habits Using Your Journal

Ahh, February - a month that can be depressing for many reasons; one being that all our January goals are in the crapper.  Snacking less, spending less, saving more, toning up, cutting back, trimming down - all slacking by now, despite our best habit tracking efforts.

I'm with you. Or at least I was before I was recently introduced to the brain science behind habits and routines through the work of Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit​: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Multiple whitepapers, TED, and TEDx Talks later, I started thinking about how to bring Duhigg's Habit Loop to my journal as a way of stopping or forming those habits I'd been so optimistic about in January. 

Here's how I changed my habits (and you can too)

I started by making a three-part loop on my page. That's because, according to the brain science Duhigg references in his book, habits consist of three major components: CUES, ROUTINES, and REWARDS. ​I can't help but to create tools with a functional purpose, so I designed our new Healthy Habit Bullet Journal Stencil to help me quickly create the graphic element for my page. It looks a little like a funky spider, but it makes swift and tidy 3, 4, 5, or 6 part cycles that fit perfectly on my journal page.

Okay, so let's say I want to STOP A BAD HABIT. I start by writing the habit I want to break in the center of the Habit Loop graphic in my journal. ​

Step 1 - Identify the ROUTINE

Ask yourself what happens leading up to the habit you want to stop and write it down in the first part of the loop. In my case it was that every weekday afternoon, I would stop working and come downstairs when our kids got home from school, they'd fix themselves a snack, sit down at the table to eat it before starting their homework, and fill me in on their day. While there with them, I would also help myself to a snack - caloric intake I did not need. 

Step 2 - Identify the CUE

Duhigg says to identify the trigger or CUE that sets the routine in motion. What time it is, where are you, who are you with, how do you feel, what have you been doing, etc. Write it down in the second part of the loop. For me I always seemed to snack when our kids got home from school.

Step 3 - Identify the REWARD

For every habit, there's a feel-good reward - which is why it becomes a habit. The reward is not the drink, the snack, the sweet, the unnecessary purchase, the screen time, etc. We're depleting not treating ourselves with those things once they become habit. The reward is the actual positive thing you seek and/or get from the habit, like social interaction, a mental break, a sense of control, relaxing after a long day, etc. Duhigg says we need to figure out what the reward actually is, and we do that by varying our routine. 

So, for example, I tried sitting in the living room instead of the dining room, or another day I said, "hi" to the kids and headed directly upstairs back to work, I checked to see if I snacked at 3:30pm on a Saturday, etc. What I figured out was my reward, the part that felt good, was specifically taking a break from work and chatting with our kids about their day at school.

​To break the habit of snacking during this part of my day during the week, just avoiding the CUE or the ROUTINE did not work. I would still crave the reward. Instead, I needed to alter the routine that leads to the reward.

​Step 4 - PLAN a new routine: When ________, I will ________ because I get to __________.

My PLAN: When the kids come home at 3:30pm during the week, I will head downstairs and make myself a cup of tea because I get to take a break and visit with them about their day. 

​By making a specific plan to replace the unhealthy part of the routine with something healthy, I break a bad habit and create a new positive habit in turn. Duhigg suggests we post the plan somewhere we'll see it every day (ahem, journal) and stick to it for about a week to give it time to replace the old routine.

The same approach can be used to START A GOOD HABIT. I fill in my habit loop with the habit I wish to start, a cue that will trigger a specific routine I visualize, and the meaningful reward it will provide for me.

My plan: When it's 5:30am, I will wake up, use the restroom, put on my running gear, go down to the basement, pull up Family Guy on the old tablet that's mounted to our treadmill, and watch/laugh while I run for 30 minutes, getting the regular exercise my body needs.

​I put this plan somewhere I can see it every day and follow the routine for a least a week to help it become habit. Coming up with a specific plan that includes a cue, routine, and reward(s) is vastly different than just setting a goal of "I'm going to exercise every day" or making an exercise tracker in my journal (and then tracking my failure at regularly exercising.) For me, understanding the Habit Loop and planning a new, healthier cue, routine, and reward actually worked.

​For more information about Charles Duhigg's approach, check out How Habits Work on his website.
(No we're not getting any affiliate perks - I've just found his synopsis tremendously helpful.)

And here's where to get your hands on our Healthy Habit Bullet Journal Stencil that I used for my layouts.

​Hopefully this is helpful - give it a go and see if you can successfully master those habits too!