31 Oct What if science had a magic formula for developing good habits and making them stick? Because it does…
I’ve been saying for many years now that happiness requires little more than practising a few simple disciplines, each and every day.
Happiness is, then, a result of happiness habits!
So what if there were a secret to forming good habits that stick? Keep reading for more happiness…
via Inc.com
What are the steps to habit formation? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Wendy Wood, Research Psychologist, Author of Good Habits, Bad Habits, on Quora:
Our lives might be very different if we took advantage of the emerging science on how, when, and why habits work. For something so integral to the human condition, our habits are paradoxically counterintuitive.
Unknowability is actually a defining feature of habits that helps make them successful at what they do: persist despite our conscious intentions to do otherwise. I go in-depth in this topic in my new book, Good Habit, Bad Habits.
Our conscious, aware self is the part of us we experience moment by moment when we make decisions, express emotions, and exert willpower. We encounter it every day. We have the ability to introspect, but hey, we can only know the knowable parts of our experience–and that’s not our habits.
Habits work so smoothly that we hardly ever think about them. The world of habit is so self-contained, it makes sense to think of it as a kind of second self–a side of you that lives in the shadow cast by the thinking mind you know so well.
Though you are not aware of it, your habitual mind is diligently at work. It’s not picky about what it learns. Just give it repetition, rewards, and contexts. These are key to change unwanted habits and form good ones that are consistent with our goals…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE