How to change habits? change your environment

It is believed that there are habits of our intentions, but in fact they are more dependent not on what we think and want, and what surrounds us. We are much more dependent on the surrounding circumstances, than realize and this can be used to create positive habits.

One of the main functions of the mind - to define templates and use them to quickly sort the information that comes from outside. Hence, there are habits - we'll automatically do something without thinking and without wasting time and energy.

That is, habits depend on what kind of information comes to us from the outside world. It becomes a pattern, a habit, but it is necessary to change the environment and habits change after him.

One study has proven that the environment means to us much more than their own intentions and motivation. In the experiment, two groups of students participated - one group moved to another university, while the control group remained in the same place, where she studied before.

Students transferred from other universities, changed many habits and noted that it is easy enough to do in a new way, because they are in the new circumstances.

The results of this study confirm the theory of stimulus control, or influence of incentives on behavior, when the environment or any part of it provokes a person to automatically commit any actions.

Incentives - our all

Control technology incentives are successfully applied in various fields, for example, for the treatment of insomnia.

People suffering from insomnia are instructed to go into the bedroom and lay down in bed when they feel tired. If after that they can not sleep, they can not stay in bed - it is necessary to go into another room and occupy yourself with something. When they feel sleepy, go back to bed.

After some time, the bed becomes associated in humans with only a dream, and not some other activity. Having developed the habit, people instantly fall asleep in my bed, because now it is associated with their sleep.

Another example of the all-powerful incentive - food. In his book "Stupid gluttony» ( «Mildness Eating») there are facts that prove how small signals from the outside world a strong influence on our behavior.

If you take a large spoon, you eat more. If you eat a large plate, you eat more. If you put yourself close to the vase on the table with sweets, you eat twice as much.

Well, everything is clear with the incentives, but can you use them to educate themselves and build themselves a good habit? Easily.

As environment izmenitit behavior

Thus, since the environment strongly influences our behavior, we can not change ourselves and the environment, and automatically change along with it. There are several methods that help to educate themselves is much simpler and does not overtax your willpower.

1. Association with tasks

If you have trouble concentrating at work, this can be solved by the same incentives and habits. When the work is related to the search on the Internet, such as writing articles for websites, it is difficult to focus on anything one - network offers many interesting articles and sites that you just jump from one to the other and did not start write.

To stop this once and for all, you can associate an activity with specific techniques. For example:

1. Computer - a deep dive into the work, but writing articles
2. Tablet - reading
3. Laptop - not serious writing, for example, responses to e-mail or correspondence with friends

This helps to focus and work more efficiently. Nothing will distract you, because you know that if you sat at the computer, you only need to write, and will not have any e-mail or hopping from site to site for interesting articles. And it is applicable in any field.

In addition, you can use the association with the environment. Office - a place where you work. From there you take away everything that can distract you, wash all the toys from a computer, remove the tabs from all entertainment sites, etc.

Associate each location with some activity, then nothing will stop you. "Tying" different places to be active is very simple. It is necessary to write something? Go to the coffee shop next to the house or in the local library, and this place will start to associate you with the writing.

2. Positive and negative habits

Instead of straining your willpower and motivation to invent, always looking for an easier way to develop a useful habit or abandon harmful.

So you can make it difficult to imagine performing their negative habits that gradually it will fall off by itself. For example, if you want to watch TV less, remove the batteries from the remote control and store them in a drawer in the kitchen. If you want to quit, throw out of the house all cigarettes, lighters and ashtrays.

On the positive habits, you can create a stimulus to make it easier to produce them. For example, if you want to run in the morning, in the evening collect all the things for the training and put next to the bed. You'll collect them in the evening, when the willpower and motivation at the peak.

Another example: If you have long wanted to use dental floss, do not hide it in a drawer, and put in a prominent place, such as near a toothbrush. And stuff like that.

You can give thousands of examples, but the general sense one: instead of trying to force to change their habits, let the facts to help you develop good habits and give up bad.

3. Use a chain of actions

Based on the realization of intentions, it is easier to create a positive habit, if it is built on the basis of something. To put it another way, the task A becomes easier to perform on a regular basis if it continually follows the task B.

Example: you finish work each day at 18:30. Then you every day to clean up the apartment. Since the event B (cleaning) constantly follows the event A (the end of the working day), in the same time, it is much easier to make it a habit.

Try to schedule tasks, as part of the schedule: on arrival home from work, after dinner, after waking up, etc. This process is even more efficient than just motivation. She is here today and gone tomorrow, and habits are iron and remain.

4. Work on the system

Almost nothing happens immediately, and success, more often, simply the result of positive habits. If you have a lot of choice, it is difficult to maintain a consistent behavior, and to eliminate the selection where it is not needed, you can create your own system. Living in the system, you will not have to make any decisions, because everything has already been established and orderly.

Select everyday aspects of your life and turn them into a system by constructing it out of those habits that you You feel useful and needed, and all the negative gradually disappear because they just will not go place.

In addition, the system is useful for productivity and planning. Single purpose - losers. He sets a goal and achieving it, the person loses landmark, while an ordered system continues to guide him in the right direction. Living on your system, you will not make much effort to perform daily tasks, and does not threaten you suddenly lose the motivation because of laziness.