Find Your Why: How to Master New Habits
I used to describe myself as low-maintenance. When it came to my routine, packing for travel, how I go to sleep, and when and how I exercise, I never really had a plan. This was something about myself I was proud of. I could fall asleep wherever I wanted, didn’t stress about my exercise routine, and could roll out of bed in the morning and start my day. While the lack of routine had some benefits, I was also having trouble sticking to habits I knew would improve my life.
I have tried hundreds of new habits throughout my life, from trying new diets or workouts to a regular meditation practice. Until recent years, I cannot remember sticking to any, which led me to ask myself: What changed?
Creating a new habit effectively hinges on three critical components: motivation, action and mindset. Motivation is the force that causes us to act on our desires or fears. It’s your “why”. The thing that sparks a desire to change and propels us toward action.
Action is the physical manifestation of a habit. It’s doing the thing! The waking up 10 minutes earlier to meditate or joining a gym to encourage regular exercise. While action may seem difficult at first, neuroscience explains that consistent actions gradually rewire the brain through a process called synaptic pruning, where less-used connections weaken and frequently used ones strengthen. In other words, it gets easier!
But, how do you get through the hard part? This is where the crucial component, mindset, comes in. Carol Dweck’s research on the ‘growth mindset’ illuminates how our beliefs about abilities significantly influence behavior and achievement. If we don’t believe we can do something, our actions won’t follow. Adopting this mindset fosters resilience and adaptability, essential traits for building and maintaining new habits.
Balancing these three elements – the drive that motivation fosters, the consistency and repetition that action brings and the resilience that a growth mindset builds – forms a robust foundation for sustainable habit formation.
Once I understood this I was able to determine why so many previous attempts at creating habits failed. While I was able to complete the “action” part, it never truly lasted because I was missing true motivation and a strong mindset. For me, understanding my “why” was the key to driving consistency and identifying limiting beliefs.
For example, one habit that I have been able to stick to over the last 2 years is going alcohol-free (for the most part :)). My “why” started as not wanting to feel hungover anymore. It wasn’t from external factors or what I believed I should be doing, but about how I felt. I didn’t start with no alcohol at all, it started with asking myself how can I reduce so that I don’t feel sick. So, I committed to only having 2 drinks. Once I realized that was achievable, my “why” changed. I realized how great I felt, how much not drinking as much was positively affecting my health and productivity and maybe most importantly, I believed I could take my new habit a step further. Now, to a lot of people’s surprise (including my own), a drink is a rare occurrence.
It has been a long journey to figure out a way to build habits that work for me and through that process, one thing has been the most important: grace. Grace is key in developing the healthy habits that work for you. I have tried some things and said that’s just not for me and grace is what has allowed me to keep trying. While it may have taken a while, it is the reason why I have been successful in creating routines today.
It’s a journey. Some things may work for a long time, and then you feel you need to change them, and some things are just elusive and take longer than you’d hoped they would. Remember: “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes, courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says, "I’ll try again tomorrow."’ - Mary Anne Radmacher
Use the quotes below to inspire you and help you through any bumps along your journey to creating your new habit. Write ones that resonate with you on a sticky note and keep them on your computer, bathroom mirror, or refrigerator.
For Motivation:
“ But where do we begin? The answer is simple, you begin where you are” - Ram Dass
“ And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” - Anaïs Nin
“Your future is created by what you do today”
For Action:
“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” - Carl Chung
“ We can make ourselves miserable or we can make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same” - George Mumford
“ All things are difficult before they are easy” - Thomas Fuller
For Mindset:
“ Human beings are the only creatures with the ability to decide they’re not going to be the same today as they were yesterday” - Greg Harden
“ The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it” - Eckhart Tolle
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts” - Winston Churchill