Breaking bad habits is easier said than done. But to make the endeavor to break bad habits successful, keystone habits can play a huge, transformative role.
What are keystone habits?
In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains keystone habits as powerful, small daily habits that create a chain reaction of other positive habits.
Keystone habits are the foundation for building good habits and improving your life.
Each of us has that one habit that makes everything fall into place. It may be waking up early for some or going to the gym for others. When performed consistently, these habits shape our lifestyle.
A keystone habit that can change my day is waking up early. On days when I wake up early, I manage to do all my tasks on time, I’m not guilty, and I’m not in a rush. Conversely, on days when I snooze my alarm, I wake up anxious and in a rush. I feel guilty for waking up late and anticipate that my entire day will be a waste.
Similarly, when I go to the gym, I become more mindful of what I eat and when I sleep and tend to be a better time manager.
So, when you adopt a positive keystone habit, it creates a ripple effect, influencing your other habits and pushing you to adopt more good habits and feel better.
Whereas, if you start a negative keystone habit, it also creates a ripple effect, that influences your lifestyle. Let’s say you have a habit of staying up late binge-watching. And now that you are binge-watching, even though you’re not hungry, you might want something to munch. Now that you have stayed up late, it’s difficult for you to wake up early, and if you wake up early and you don’t get enough sleep, you feel cranky and sleepy and not productive and guilty.
How do Keystone habits help to break bad habits?
-The first thing you must do is take full responsibility for your life. You can either wait for external circumstances to change your life or make choices that can change your life for good.
Breaking bad habits is all about bringing conscious change into your life. That begins by creating changes in your habits, which causes changes within you, and that is how it becomes easier to manage your undesirable habits.
The most crucial role of a keystone habit is that it transforms the way you perceive yourself. When engaging in good keystone habits, your self-image and internal dialogue change into a more confident and positive one.
When you exercise regularly, you feel good about yourself, you are mindful of your eating habits and sleeping time, and you feel accomplished and motivated. The sense of accomplishment or feeling good about yourself after you do a workout is a reward and an accelerator for your well-being.
On the other hand, observe your internal dialogue when you promise to work out and when you don’t. You perceive yourself as lazy, someone who breaks promises, and you feel guilty and promise again that you’ll do it tomorrow. This goes on and on in a loop, until you….
STOP!!!! Break the cycle!!!!
Take action!!!
I know it’s challenging to take that first step, and even after taking that first step to form a keystone habit, things don’t change overnight. It’s a gradual process of breaking the old patterns and creating new ones that form new neural pathways in your brain. Gradually, it becomes an effortless and essential part of your life.
Keep going until it becomes effortless.
My gym coach told me he feels he missed something when he misses a day of workout. Okay, how would you feel if you left your house without brushing your teeth? Do you have to put in extra effort every day to brush your teeth, or does it happen effortlessly?
I know the answer. It’s because we have formed a habit that we can perform subconsciously without applying extra effort every day.
-One way of breaking bad habits is replacing them with other healthy activities to form habits. You will undoubtedly encounter resistance in the initial days; keep going until you overcome the resistance and create a habit. It’s all about enduring the resistance until you form a habit. Keystone habits work the same way by replacing unhealthy habits with healthy ones.
5 KEYSTONE HABITS TO GET RID OF BAD HABITS
Since we all have habits that are undesirable and want to get rid of, I’d like to start by giving examples of keystone habits for the five pillars of your life:
Health, Relationship, Finances, Career, and Personal Development.
1. Keystone Habit for Health
The most common keystone habit for your health and well-being is engaging in regular exercise. Choose any activity that you like, such as going to the gym, running, dancing, or yoga, and start committing to it every day to build it as a habit. Do not just wait for the New Year to make promises about exercising regularly when you can start anywhere, anytime.
If you don’t like exercising, it’s natural that you’ll resist it. So, you have to ask yourself these questions:
-Why do I need to exercise?
-At this point in my life, which activity would be the best starting point for building the habit of exercising?
-How will I motivate myself to exercise? You may need an accountability partner or a gym membership and personal trainer.
-How will my life be better when I start exercising?
These questions are necessary as all of us have different health goals, different levels of motivation, and different ways of getting motivated. But the primary goal if you are not regular about workouts is to make working out a habit.
Once you make it a habit, it becomes a keystone habit, causing a domino effect on your other habits. You start becoming conscious of what you eat, how much you sleep, and all the bad habits that have a negative impact on your health.
So, regular exercise is the best keystone habit anyone can adopt.
2. Keystone Habit for Relationship
Relationships are the most valuable assets we have in our lives. Every success and every failure would mean nothing if you didn’t have anyone to share them with. Yet, in our pursuit of our goals, we somehow take the connections for our loved ones for granted.
Therefore, it’s really important to nurture the bonds we share with our tribe (family and friends).
And, for that, a significant keystone habit would be proper communication.
Without proper communication, a relationship can struggle to thrive, no matter how much love, trust, and commitment are present. Effective communication is the cornerstone that holds everything together, allowing partners to understand each other’s needs, resolve conflicts, and build a deeper connection.
Among the many communication components, listening is a habit that can be cultivated through conscious effort. First, really listening to someone makes them feel loved and supported. You hear their words and catch the emotions and intentions behind them. It’s like saying, “I see you; I hear you; you matter.” Who wouldn’t want that?
Just as lifting weights strengthens your muscles, truly listening strengthens your relationships. It means putting down your phone, tuning into the speaker’s emotions, and resisting the urge to jump in with your own stories.
Taking the time to listen means you’re hitting the pause button and being present. Along with strengthening your relationships, listening as a keystone habit helps you be more present than thinking about the assignment or anything else. But we’re all guilty of not being good listeners to our partners, parents, and kids.
But we can change that and hear the other person. Good listening enriches every aspect of your life, creating a ripple of positivity and understanding. It starts with deeper connections—people feel valued and understood, building trust and intimacy. This leads to better communication, reducing misunderstandings and conflicts. As you listen more, your empathy grows, making you more compassionate. You become more patient, learning to respect others’ thoughts. At work, you’re seen as a team player, boosting collaboration. Reflecting on what you hear fosters personal growth and self-awareness.
It’s not just about relationship with your partners, this habit of better communication can improve relationships with your kids, parents, and friends.
3. Keystone Habit for Finances
Keeping track of your expenses is a good habit that helps you be aware of your expenses and spending habits.
Keeping track of your expenses helps you create a budget for your expenditure and at least makes you aware of how much you shop mindlessly and needlessly.
You can start by planning a monthly budget and classify your expenses into food and groceries, personal wants (clothing, makeup, dining out), mandatory bills, and investments. Allocating a weekly budget has helped me be mindful of my expenses.
So, every night, try to remember your expenses for the day and write them down. Writing down every expense, no matter how small, forces you to confront your spending habits. This can be eye-opening and often highlights unnecessary expenditures.
As you become more financially disciplined, you may be more mindful in other areas, such as reducing waste, making more thoughtful purchases, and even improving time management.
4. Keystone Habit for your Career
The habit of learning is the most beneficial habit not only for your career but also for life.
A person who is open to learning is also constantly unlearning which helps us stay updated and flexible to new information and perspectives.
It doesn’t matter if you’re out of college or university; to learn, you can grab a book. If you are tired of not being able to tame your distractions from social media overuse, reading is an excellent replacement for that habit.
Even if you don’t have books, read the newspaper, magazines, and excellent blog articles.
I have subscribed to a newsletter called Refind which sends me a curated list of blog articles according to my interests.
Regular reading contributes to your professional development. It can lead to improved job performance, new career opportunities, and a more robust professional network. Reading for your professional development doesn’t always have to be about your subject of work. You can read books that help you gain a new perspective on life and learn from it.
A few book recommendations:
- The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
- The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
- The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
So, when you spend too much time on social media, grab and read a good book.
Also read: 35 Screen-Free Ways to Deal with Boredom
5. Keystone Habit for Personal Development
Personal development is an essential pillar of our life. Embracing personal development benefits us individually and positively impacts those around us.
Habits like reading and exercising are important contributors to personal development. But there is a transformative habit that will help you in all areas of your life.
And that’s journaling.
It sounds simple, but I know many of you who journal regularly must have witnessed changes in your life and how you perceive it.
Journaling creates a dedicated time and space for introspection. It allows you to examine your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a focused manner. Imagine a stressful day at work where you felt overwhelmed. By journaling about the day’s events, you can identify specific triggers of stress and your reactions to them. Over time, this awareness can help you develop coping strategies and recognize patterns in your behavior that you might want to change.
Instead of passively waiting for external circumstances to change, journaling fosters personal growth and transformation from within, leading to deliberate and meaningful life improvements. It is indeed empowering to be honest with ourselves while journaling.
I just found my four-year-old diary, where I had jotted down feelings, goals, affirmations, quotes, and words of gratitude. And I felt grateful to myself for having written down my thoughts and those inspiring words (mostly copied).
You might uncover innovative ideas or connections you hadn’t considered before by writing down your thoughts.
If you want to start a journaling practice, here’s a guide on how to start journaling.
Now that you have read about how forming good habits can help you break free from your bad ones. You can ask yourself these questions and begin on your transformative journey/
-What is that habit I am guilty of and want to quit?
-What is stopping me from getting rid of it, is it my mindset or my environment?
-How can I help myself?
-What is that one good habit that I want to start, but have been putting off?
After you deep-dive into yourself, prepare yourself to embrace the journey ahead. There will be tough days when you feel like giving up and going back to your older patterns. It’s not easy, but it will become easier.
Trust yourself and the process.
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