Understanding the Power and Importance of Habits and Routines
Habits and routines are at the core of everything we do. Think about how you spend your days and your time. Do you have the right foundations to get you where you want to go? What are your daily and weekly habits and routines? Everyone has them, whether you know it or not they exist. Understanding the things you do on autopilot is a good place to start on how you’re spending your time and whether they are setting you up for success. There is growing research and information about how habits and routines come together and help anyone take better control of their lives, whether it’s for productivity, health purposes, or just wanting to live a more intentional life. Habits and routines play a vital role in that.
I have written about both topics in the past, and I have tied a lot of that work to the outstanding (and highly recommended) books by Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) and James Clear (Atomic Habits). In the upcoming articles, I would like to explore more about how habits and routines work together and the outcomes they can drive for retail leaders. How you build your habits is as important as the habits themselves. Routines can be the glue that holds them all together. It is astonishing how many little things we do essentially on autopilot every day. These little moments can be the difference in being the person you really want to be, or being slightly, or even worse, way off.
With so much written recently about habits, it has become a hot topic. With that comes conflicting ideas, misinformation, and sometimes confusions on what habits are how to best approach them. The biggest myth around habits remains that it takes twenty-one days for habits to form. That is 100% BS. There are multiple studies now that show it varies considerably on how long it takes any individual to form habits. 1 And, it varies based on the habit you are trying to form. It is a convenient thing to say, but entirely wrong.
I am also combining the discussion around habit and routines, but they are separate and independent things. I believe they package well, but let’s discuss what they look like standing on their own first.
Habits
According to Dr. Benjamin Gardner, a psychologist focusing on habit research at King’s College London, “habit works by generating an impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought.” Habits are simply how the brain learns to do things without deliberation. 23 Habits, thus, are generally simple things that we can do over and over without a lot of thought or intention. Things that take a lot more thought and effort to complete, by this definition, are not candidates for habits. Exercising for strength training and therefore not a habit, it takes much more effort to get to the outcome. Brushing your teeth when you wake up each morning is a habit.
Habits, scientists say, emerge because the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. — From “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg
Habits also tend to follow the more specific pattern of cue, routine, reward. For example, I wake up, I brush my teeth, my teeth feel clean for the day. The cue tends to be something that recurs and triggers the action that you automatically complete. For people who smoke, a time of day, or after a meal may be the cue that has always triggered the time to light up. Addressing that cue and routine is how to break out of the habit. In The Power of Habit, Duhigg explains how Alcoholics Anonymous’ ten-step program works to break down the cues that store the triggers for wanting a drink. While I think alcoholism is a bigger issue than simply a bad habit, the program’s steps can be an example for understanding how to break out of the cues that can cause actions that are harmful to us.
Routines
Behaviors that require intention and meaningful thoughts are routines. Routines are a sequence of actions that are regularly followed. Stringing several intentional actions together forms the basis of a routine. A morning routine may look like: get up, go to the bathroom, wash your face, brush your teeth, put on your exercise clothes, walk for thirty minutes. Only some of those may be habitual, but the collection of those efforts becomes your morning routine.
In summary, habits are automatic and may lack conscious awareness, while routines are consciously planned and structured sequences of activities with a specific purpose. Habits can be part of routines, but not all routines involve habitual behavior.
The difference between habits and routines
To understand the importance of both of these concepts combined, we should explore more about how they are different. The definitions are above, but what do they actually mean? Habits are the type of things that if you skip them (once fully established) you feel odd, like something is missing. Uncomfortable. If you don’t brush your teeth in the mornings, isn’t there a nagging feeling of not feeling right? You know something is missing or out of line. A step in a routine being skipped is usually a conscious effort. You say to yourself, “I don’t think I am going to run today. I don’t feel well, or it's raining outside.” Because there was thought going into the routine, and a decision to skip it, it feels less weird than missing a habit. It also why it is much easier to fall out of routines than to break a habit.
Habits and routines are different, but they are related. And, ultimately, I think they benefit from each other. There can be many similarities between the two, thus why they are often described in a similar fashion. That symbiotic relationship is why I am pairing them together for this series of articles. They can, and, do stand on their own, but together, they can form a powerful process for programming how you set yourself up for success.
The Importance of Habits and Routines
No one believes they have enough time to do everything they would like to do, especially on any given day. Imagine if we had to think about every little thing throughout the day. Our time would get even tighter. We do not even realize, in most instances, how many things we complete in automatic mode. Those habits, the strung together steps that create routines, are tremendous time savers each day. Intentionally building those habits and routine to position yourself where you want at critical parts of the day can make the difference in how much you get done at other points.
To name a few essential importance factors of habits and routines, I would begin with: time management, efficiency, influencing mindset, goal achievement, ability to concentrate, or predictability. These are only scratching the surface of the importance of having healthy habits and structured routines. With a strong foundation built on habits that help you, and combining them to structure routines throughout the day will allow you to spend more time working on the most important things.
As we explore this further, we will cover how you can build your habits to work for you. We’ll wrap up the short series with how you can sustain those new routines that will keep you on track and provide the benefits that come from the essential items above.
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1 From (and verified accurate) from ChatGPT
The idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit is a common belief, but it's a bit of a myth. The concept originated from a misinterpretation of research conducted by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon, in the 1960s. Dr. Maltz observed that his patients took approximately 21 days to adjust to changes in their appearance, such as getting used to a new nose or recovering from an amputation.
However, it's crucial to note that Dr. Maltz himself did not claim that it takes exactly 21 days to form a habit. Additionally, more recent research suggests that the time required to establish a habit can vary widely among individuals and depends on several factors.
A popular study conducted by Dr. Phillippa Lally and her colleagues at the University College London in 2009 found that, on average, it took about 66 days for participants to form a new habit. However, the time varied widely among individuals, ranging from 18 to 254 days.
The key takeaway is that there is no one-size-fits-all timeline for habit formation. The time it takes to establish a habit depends on factors such as the complexity of the behavior, individual differences, and the level of commitment. Simple habits may become ingrained more quickly than complex ones, and individual motivation and consistency play significant roles in the process.
In summary, while the 21-day rule is a convenient and memorable guideline, it oversimplifies the complexity of habit formation. It's more accurate to view habit development as a gradual process that varies from person to person and behavior to behavior.