How habits form: why you do things you never decided to do
Habits: why your hand moves before you decide
You made a good plan for every evening, and a month later it has not happened once. Something else wins each night: a habit you never chose.
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1
A month ago, you bought a guitar and made a plan: ten minutes of practice every evening, after dinner. You told Miva, who shares your flat, and you meant it.
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2
Tonight, dinner ends and you drop onto the sofa. When you look up, an hour has gone, and the phone is in your hand. You never chose to pick it up.
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3
Miva walks by and points at the guitar. You start to explain, and find nothing to say: you cannot remember a moment where you decided.
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4
You are far from alone. When students noted what they did every hour, about 43% of it was something done almost daily, in the same place, often with the mind elsewhere.
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5
Scientists have a name for those actions: habits. A habit is something you do with no decision, because the place and the moment start it for you. Your evening scroll is one, and the sofa after dinner starts it.
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6
So the guitar is not losing because you are lazy. It loses to something that starts before you decide anything. To beat it, you first need to see how a habit is built.
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Go further
Two names behind the story.