Have you ever seen a TikTok or Instagram Reel about healthy eating, working out, or keeping good hygiene and, after watching, decided: “My whole life needs to change?” So, you try to change your habits, only to find that not even a week later, you’re back to how you were before. And eventually, you’re led to the question, “Why is it so hard to keep good habits?”
Well, making and keeping habits is a lot more complicated than you may think. There isn’t really a set timeframe for how long it takes to make a habit, as some habits take longer than others to form. For example, a kid learns not to touch a hot stove after one bad experience, but it might take them way longer to learn to consistently brush their teeth.
It seems like, more often than not, bad habits are easier to form than good ones. It’s so easy to start falling into bad sleeping habits, yet it’s so hard to start practicing good sleeping habits. It seems like bad habits are so much easier, and good habits take so much effort to carry out. This is because bad habits provide immediate reinforcement. When you stay up late, you get immediate reinforcement through entertainment. However, when you sleep on time, you don’t get that immediate reinforcement. You might not even notice any benefit the next day. That’s why it’s so much easier to stay comfortable in our bad habits.
To solve this, we can start applying the immediate reinforcement principle to our good habits. For example, you can make the experience a competition or a social experience. You can reward yourself when you avoid bad habits. Also, using a log to record your progress can motivate you to keep your good habits.
Another reason why it’s hard to maintain good habits is because of the way we set them up. We often try to change too much at once. If you decide you want to start running every day, it’s better to be incremental about it than running four miles in one day and being so tired you take the next week off. You could start running one mile for three days a week, and then, the next week, you add a day. And, eventually, you could start adding more miles. Being incremental is very important, as it helps you create patterns in your daily life that you can build on. For example, say you already have a habit of brushing your teeth. Maybe you decide you want to start flossing as well. You already brush your teeth twice a day, so now you just add another step to that routine.
Keeping healthy habits is a great thing, but it can be tiring. That’s why it’s important to do things incrementally to not overwhelm yourself. Providing reinforcement and motivation to keep these habits helps a lot as well. Having goals is wonderful, and it’s great to have a plan for how you want to be. But it does take effort to get there.
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