"Why building better habits is way easier than you might think": Delving into Chapter 3

In today's fast-paced world, accomplishing our objectives can be an intimidating endeavor. We all have great intentions, but sustaining the habits that we believe will lead to success can be challenging. The book "Atomic Habits" by author James Clear gives a practical framework for generating long-term behavior change, and chapter 3 focuses on the significance of environmental design and a 4-Step formula to help you build better habits

Our environment, according to Clear, has an enormous influence on our conduct. When our surroundings make positive behaviors more tempting, we are more inclined to engage in them, and when our surroundings make undesirable actions less appealing, we are less likely to engage in them. As a consequence, we have to establish an environment that supports our desired habits.

Clear discusses the concept of "environmental design" which entails changing our surroundings to make them more conducive to our envisioned actions. He gives multiple instances of how we could employ environmental design to make our routines easier to follow, including the account of Edward Thorndike's experiment with cats. Thorndike placed cats in a puzzle box and observed that when the box was modified to make the desired behavior easier, the cats were more inclined to escape. Thorndike, for example, would install a lever that, when pressed, would open the box, and the cats gained knowledge to press the lever to escape.

Clear advises that we begin by finding the "core habits" that will have the most impact on our lives. For instance, if we wish to improve our physical health, we could consider exercise, proper food, and appropriate sleep as basic behaviors. Once we've acknowledged our basic habits, we may concentrate on establishing an environment that encourages these behaviors.

The author presents four basic stages towards putting environmental design into effect:

Make it obvious: Make visual clues that remind us of what we want to do. Leave our gym clothing out the night before, for example, to motivate us to workout in the morning.

Make it attractive: Pair our desired action with something pleasurable. While exercising, for example, listen to music or an audiobook.

Make it easy: Remove any barriers that hinder us from participating in the desired behavior. Keep healthful snacks in the fridge, for example, or organize a gym bag prior to the day of going to the gym.

Make it satisfying: Create a sense of satisfaction or reward for engaging in our preferred conduct. For example, after a workout, we could treat ourselves to a healthy a meal.

Clear highlights the necessity of beginning small and making gradual improvements to our environment. He suggests that rather than making sudden adjustments that are difficult to maintain, we focus on establishing an environment that continuously promotes our desired behavior over time.

To adequately comprehend the power of environmental design and how it may assist us to induce long-term behavior change, we need to first comprehend how habits operate. In "Atomic Habits," Clear explains that habits are created by a three-step process known as the "habit loop": cue, routine, and reward.

The cue is an indication that urges the brain to establish a habit. Feeling anxious, for example, may prompt us to grab for a sugary snack. The routine is the behavior that occurs in response to the trigger, such as eating the snack. The pleasurable emotion or outcome that occurs from completing the routine, such as a sugar rush, is the reward.

Clear observes that habits arise when the brain learns to correlate a given stimulus with a specific routine and reward. The habit loop becomes automatic over time, and the behavior becomes imprinted.

However, this process also implies that we can change our habits on purpose by modifying the cues, routines, and incentives. This is where environmental design enters the picture. We may effectively "hack" the habit loop and build new, good habits that will drive us closer to our goals by adjusting our environment to make our desired actions more clear, attractive, easy, and fulfilling.

That is it for today´s article. As always, stay safe and I sincerely hope that you learned something new. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and I will try to answer it. The next chapter is called “The man who didn´t look right” and I am looking forward to seeing you there again.