The best way to create habits

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

Learning takes time. For us, humans and for the animals that we are teaching alike. While working with owners and their dogs, it’s not just the dog that needs to develop a new habit, it’s also the caregiver. When we expect too much from ourselves we can easily get discouraged. If you never used treats with your dog – it’s going to take time for you to build a habit around it. You might not see the change in your dog immediately but have you made the sustainable change in you first? It’s easy to blame the dog but for him creating a new habit can be equally challenging as it is for you.

Photo by Richard Brutyo on Unsplash

What can we do to help ourselves learn? When you don’t see the behaviour that you were after could you break it down into smaller steps next time?

I talked about shaping previously and even though I know quite a lot about it, I do sometimes forget to apply it in my own life. Self-assessment is not easy! I want to share with you my journey in the hope to inspire you to do small self-reflection and help yourself adopt new habits.

I wanted to send an email to someone I admire and felt anxious about it. The behaviour of sending an email can, however, be broken down into a lot smaller steps! For example:

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

1. Finding correct email address

2. Writing the first sentence

3. Creating a draft

4. Working on a draft

5. Finishing the draft

6. Asking someone to look through the draft

7. Sending the email

Every single step can be followed by a positive consequence. For some people, the sense of achievement is enough to strengthen the behaviour. When you ask yourself to do a task that seems too big, you might end up not doing it at all. Isn’t it better to start at just writing the first sentence? You might be inspired and continue until you have a whole draft. There are no steps that are too small.

Go ahead and look at something that you plan to do yet continuously procrastinate on. Could you not break it down into smaller steps? I challenge you to do the first step now! After you do it, you can tick it off your list. Wouldn’t that feel good?