Key to this process, for me, is that the habit tracking and reminders are secondary actions. No active tracking of habits, reminders only show up rarely. I’m doing the behavior without any time of prompt.
If you’re looking to do this too, I’d recommend picking something very small and not over doing it.
Also, a big thank you to the developer of Streaks, Quinten. He checked over the Shortcuts workflow and even shipped an update to make this is a bit easier to do now.
The reason why habits don't work is because habits don't work. Unless you actually change your mind (what is causing these habits) in a pretty comprehensive, introspective way, habits won't get you anywhere.
Although if you are super down with habits, you should keep going. Just saying it's probably a dead-end, and if you really need to solve your problems (i.e. some habits are so crucial that you need to form them/get rid of them to proceed in life), then habit-hacking (or just any sort of self-help in general) won't help. Start looking in the direction of meditation, or just whatever you feel like. Relax a whole lot. The self-help industry is fueled by anxiety.
Belief makes most self-help work, which is also why it is hard to un-believe it in case it's wrong. Very weird corner of the world, that is, the self-help space.
*: Habits that work aren't habits that were constructed.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is a pretty good example of habits being used to change your way of thinking. A habit-based approach for deep psychological change. There’s a lot of research behind it and in the U.K. it’s a go to tool for the NHS for tackling depression.
The principles behind CBT overlap considerably with the principles of habit change that BJ Fogg researches and writes about (aka the Stanford research as cited in this article).
Whether it’s health behaviours or negative thought patterns, I’d argue that “hacking habits” is a very valid way (but not the only way) to make positive and lasting changes in your life.
I also say this as someone who has drastically changed my lot in life by focusing on habit hacking and behaviour change. And yes, meditation too, and therapy, and lots of excellent self-help books and medication.
These are all tools in a toolbox. None of them are a panacea, but in combination (and everyone is different) they all have their place.
I don't think CBT or BJ Fogg's methods are a useful source for understanding how the mind works. I have limited exposure to CBT, but I used to do research for BJ Fogg. These models are descendents from behavioral psychology, which isn't all that great.
If habits work as an abstraction for you, great. But in general, it is not a good way of thinking about your mind as a bunch of random and temptation-ridden space that must be controlled. If you really understand a habit, it will no longer take any effort to choose to stop (or continue) it. Real change from A to B doesn't require consistent effort to stop being A (which is what all these habit-based models are about). It means you are B now, as if you have always been B, etc.
Check out Andre Kukla's The Mind for more info and stuff on memory reconsolidation/focusing.
EDIT: Real change isn't you are addicted to video games, and now you set up a really rigid schedule and regiment and discipline to stop playing video games, even though you REALLY want to. You still want to play videogames. It is not the mind that changed, but rather the circumstance (and some periphery of the mind that suppresses the temptations). Real change is actually you now being a person who never really liked videogames in the first place. So bunch of your friends are playing videogames in the living room, and you are more 'tempted' to study for the exam you have tomorrow.
Not that this is easy, but looking at habits won't get you to this place (given that you want this kind of real change). But the problem is people think habits are the only solution, and they dominate people's minds on how they think about themselves.
So book on memory reconsolidation isn't necessarily a methodology, but a bit of science that I used to justify the methods I used. This book[1] by Bruce Ecker is good.
Yeah Kukla is a hard book to get, but very worth it. It provides a comprehensive view of history of psychology, with a strong (good) bias against behavioral psychology.
I would look into Eugene Gendlin's Focusing[2][3], as first steps. Then stuff by Mark[4][5], or Gestalt Therapy[6].
The key to all of this I think is literally doing whatever you want to do. This can't be explained in one go (unfortunately), but you should basically engage in your vices. If you are curious or none of these resources suffice, you can also DM me at https://twitter.com/eating_entropy.
I'm interested in your standpoint on this, but I don't agree with the writing off of habit change as a useful approach.
> I don't think CBT or BJ Fogg's methods are a useful source for understanding how the mind works.
I don't go to CBT (or Tiny Habits) necessarily to learn how the mind works, I already know they are very high level abstractions derived from much lower level, more detailed understandings. (And even those underlying principles themselves are abstractions too). I go to these things because I have decided I want to make a change and they are useful and somewhat proven tools for purposeful, self-directed, behaviour change.
> Real change from A to B doesn't require consistent effort to stop being A
I agree that real change doesn't necessarily require consistent effort once you're at B. But I believe it will always require conscious effort for the transition, whichever path you take. Sitting down to meditate takes consistent effort too. (I use the word "effort" here cautiously in the same sentence as "meditation", but to go from A a non-meditator to B a meditator definitely requires effort).
So are we talking about the effort needed once you're "there" (at B) or "while you're getting there" (going from A to B)?
If I learn to drive or play the piano, I start out (A) as someone who can't do these things, and during my transition period I have to exert conscious, consistent, exhausting amounts of effort to try to be "B" - the person who can play the piano or drive.
I have to direct my conscious effort to this task day after day, and it takes up all my available mental resources while I'm doing the activity.
But once I'm there, I'm there. I am person B. I can drive without almost any conscious effort at all. I can play the piano fluidly without thinking about where my hands are, or even looking at the piano or the music. I have completely and totally become a person who can play the piano and drive a car. Even after years of doing neither, letting those behavioural patterns fade, I will still be much closer to person B than A.
This behaviour of playing the piano or driving a car really just consists of a serious of habits, acquired with conscious effort, which are now essentially automatic. This skill acquisition relies on the principle of the brain being malleable, on connections between neurons being able to be strengthened or weakened, and for this to happen not just by accident but as a result of conscious, self-directed effort.
Let's now say I'm someone who consistently has negative thought patterns. I constantly beat myself up for screwing up. At point A, I need to direct conscious effort to notice these thoughts and change the focus of my attention away from chastising myself and towards recognising what I did do well. Lots of effort yes, but just like playing the piano, this can eventually become my default. This is essentially the principle behind the practical aspects of CBT.
This is top down change, I'm focussing on behaviours first and not necessarily self-image or beliefs, but the change can legitimately happen in both directions. If you consistently behave in a certain way, you start to self-identify as a person who behaves that way, you start to change your unconscious beliefs about who you are.
You can change yourself via a bottom up approach too. Focus on changing your identify, self-image and beliefs, and behaviours can follow. Both are totally legitimate approaches and I've tried both. I've found top-down change via behaviours to be much easier, but I don't discount the bottom-up approach (which is perhaps what you are more advocating for?).
I tend to think of habit/behaviour change as a way to line up my actual behaviours with who I have decided I want to be. I have a set of values, and I use behaviour change to adjust myself so that I am acting in closer alignment to those values.
I think what you might be saying, is that unless you change your beliefs and your mental picture of who you are, then trying to change surface level habits and behaviours may not work, and I think there is some truth to that. But this doesn't lead me to write off the whole field of habit building and behaviour change. All of these understandings and approaches can co-exist.
> the problem is people think habits are the only solution
This seems to be a bit of a binary statement - I'm not sure people generally think habits are the only solution.
I would argue that outside of the bubble that you and I are likely in, there is not a broad enough understanding of how building habits can drive behaviour change. I observe that most people overwhelmingly rely on exerting willpower alone to change their behaviours, and then are surprised and disappointed when the willpower runs out and their behaviour regresses.
I think that increased understanding of why it's more important to build habitual behaviours than to constantly try to rely on willpower to drive your behaviour would be beneficial to most people.
> Check out Andre Kukla's The Mind for more info and stuff on memory reconsolidation/focusing.
Okay this is really great. This is exposing holes in my explanations. Thank you for writing this up.
All of what you said is true, with regard to your examples (e.g. change from A-> B with respect to driving). I doubt anyone can deny that. Let me just fix up some of my points before moving onto the bigger issue.
> The problem is people think habits are the only solution
This is a biased statement, mostly from my experiences. I used to think this way, and am projecting a bit. But I have witnessed people really relying on discipline and habits to live their lives. So while it may not be the only solution, generally when people think of change from A -> B, it means doing B an awful lot so that you get used to it.
> You can change yourself via a bottom up approach too.
This is a good distinction. My view is that most bottom up approaches that are used are actually top down approaches. The true bottom up approach that I take is watching Netflix, playing videogames, sleeping until noon, whatever. I know there is little justification for my claim here, but at least that is what I believe and it's interesting. Maybe it will clarify as to why I think that is the solution.
In a way, if you need to force yourself to meditate, I suggest you don't (my meditation teacher will be very angry that I said this, but I believe it).
The only way that I was able to deal with major psychological blocks and difficult problems was in actually doing A forever (or at least intending to do A forever) in the A-> B example you gave. The mind, as it turns out, is a complex system of beliefs, with beliefs on top of beliefs, next to beliefs, and all that.
I had only couple sessions of CBT, but it seems they don't go all the way down. Or if they get stuck at some belief, there is no real way downwards. The same is true with Tony Robbins methodology. They talk about limiting beliefs, but they are not entirely sure as to why limiting beliefs do not go away (or why you have to "combat" them for a majority of your life).
The only way to dissolve limiting beliefs is to actually believe it further, create excuses for it, create fiction for it. For instance, if you believe in conspiracy theory to justify your anxiety (and you don't want to believe it), and are in this sort of weird dual-state, then I actually encourage belief in conspiracy theory.
If you find yourself lying to yourself all the time, or deceiving yourself for variety of reasons (this hiding/distorting property of mind is actually a feature, not a bug), then I say keep lying to yourself, help yourself lie to yourself, etc.
For a simple (albeit flawed) justification, just notice actively, consciously espousing the "bad" solution is actually the only thing you haven't tried in that particular problem context to a great extent. Very few would do this. Thus your mind is sort of limited in doing this, and in doing this sort of "bad" thing, you can solve some pretty untractable problems.
Maybe I am spewing BS from your perspective, but these are strategies that I have used for some time with good success, and will continue to use. It only makes sense that I represent the strategies I use.
Also another thing is most of the time you actually don't know why you are doing something (or why you aren't doing something). People blanket it with "laziness" or evolutionary whatever, but from my experience, once you understand your reason for a habit, you can actually choose or choose away from it. And understanding, say, why you play videogames every day might involve actual, belief-level changes in metaphysics or social norms or how physics works. Who knows. All these beliefs are ultra connected.
But given this, habits impose a kind of short cut towards solving your problems, in a nominal way. And you can get real addicted. You can build a castle of habits, more disciplines, more Triggers (to use Fogg methodology), etc. But if you actually change you don't need triggers. You trigger yourself. You think about math problems in your sleep.
And this castle of habits is very fragile. You look disciplined. You face a lot of pain. But you are no fun. So for people who have crazy regiments and whatever, I don't really try to talk about this stuff. If you need it, you need it. It's not necessary that everybody sort of does bottom-up.
But if the block towards bottom-up is not mental but rather lack of knowledge/experience, then I think it's worth not using habits whatsoever. Wake up as late as you want, despite what the consequences might be. And maybe if you are not in a situation that makes that feasible, then you might need to make room for psychology. But a lot of people impose these constraints even when they don't need to (e.g. weekends, trying to read books and stuff in their free time, etc.). It's really hurting psychological progress.
I am not sure if I really answered your comments, but feel free to poke any gaping holes in what I said.
EDIT: Okay, reading your post again and adding comments. The A->B is a simple model for describing different opinions about how one views psychological change.
The vast majority of people, when they agree that B > A, would say you need to keep doing B. You keep doing B, then you get used to B, and your resistance to B is fear, or something evolutionary, or laziness (I think this covers about 95% of people's explanations). So you are suggested to keep doing B. Now let's say you didn't become numb to B but that now, like in driving, are just completely used to it. This happens a lot and is how a lot of things do work.
But for some really, critical, self-defining problems, doing B is not the way to go. Good example might be "thinking positive thoughts in a negative state". So here A would be "think negative thoughts" and B would be "think positive thoughts". Everybody sane would suggest that if you are A, and you want A->B, then you should keep doing B. As in, in a negative mood, you should put effort into thinking positive thoughts.
But at least with me, this doesn't really work. By and large forcing positive thoughts into negative states is hard (part of it is how it is defined) and over time you don't get "used to" positive thoughts. (and if you don't see negative thoughts anymore using stay in B method, most likely you no longer have access to that negative thought but it still exists under the hood, rumbling and affecting everything else. it's just unobserved)
This is different from driving example because there B is not fully mapped out or known. You are driving and you are unskilled, so you are mapping out B until you get used to it.
In this positive thoughts in negative states example, you basically know what B is like. Maybe you haven't accounted for every possible state, but similar problems keep coming up.
Thus I would say in this situation you need to keep doing A. So I am saying in a negative mood you should keep thinking/actively encouraging negative thoughts. Which, I would imagine, is surprising (and perhaps crappy) advice.
But this actually worked for me! This is what got me to change my thought patterns.
A thing that might jive your thoughts: It is well-recognized that thinking positive thoughts in negative mood is hard. Try doing that, it's really hard. But try the opposite. Try thinking negative thoughts in positive mood. For me, it's equally hard to think negative thoughts in positive mood as thinking positive thoughts in negative mood.
The mind doesn't care. You just gotta align with it. And if you align with it, you will understand it (given enough time), and be like "Oh, this is why?" And then you move on, the issue doesn't scream anymore, and you can live.
I think using new fangled technology for habits doesn't work, and habits that require hacks is not ideal.
What I do these days is focus on habits-efficiency. What kind of self care must I do so I don't feel like shit, and I have a sheet that I use to keep track of what needs to happen. The best part about this is that I get that sweet-sweet dopamine hit from checking a box.
The list of things per day: daily chore, morning meds, morning supplements, stretches, breathwork, squats, treadmill miles, chest exercises, dumb bells, kettle bells, fasting until (noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm), brush teeth at 6pm, resume fasting at (8pm, 10pm, midnight), did I poop, how many bottles of water did I drink, did I adher to the scheduled diet, take evening supplements, evening breathwork, am I heading to bed before 12:30am, and what was my weight before bed.
Such a system (which I am continuing to refine) helps me, a highly randomizing person, get my shit together so I'm losing weight and feeling pretty good.
So, I'm not sure what you mean when you say habits don't work.
I think the key is finding the discipline style to ensure we live well considering our environment is way too lax and permissive of unhealthy behaviors.
>I think the key is finding the discipline style to ensure we live well considering our environment is way too lax and permissive of unhealthy behaviors.
I agree strongly with this. Part of what I was hoping to do (and seeing the effect) is change a more subtle prompt, the apps the iPhone suggests based on prior behavior. By tying my habit tracking to opening more “healthy” apps, I’d see them show up more often on the home screen. And hopefully be less likely to use “less healthy apps”.
The reason why habits don't work is because habits don't work. Unless you actually change your mind (what is causing these habits) in a pretty comprehensive, introspective way, habits won't get you anywhere.
Not according to my experience. I have a habit for studying, I basically did that without skipping a beat for almost a year, otherwise it's two years and longer.
> Habits that work aren't habits that were constructed.
You said both "habits don't work" and "habits work if they're not constructed".
In my experience you're incorrect about the former, and I don't understand the latter. All habits are constructed — they're a conscious act, especially while you're establishing them. If you're trying to build habits, haven't you already thought about why in a pretty comprehensive, introspective way?
It would be amazing if habits magically emerged from comprehensive introspection, but Thinking About X is not Doing X.
Yeah I use words imprecisely, on purpose (doesn't work for everybody). If I had to break it down, when I say "habits don't work", I mean "habits that you consciously put effort into and construct will end up doing more harm to you if you are trying to make real change". When I say "habits work if they're not constructed", I mean that what people repeatedly do every day naturally, what those observing might call habits, are actually just natural extensions of the property of their minds, not necessarily consciously decided things.
People when talking about things they do on a repeated basis are not so explicit on whether they consciously chose and constructed it, or whether it's something that they came to naturally. So habits are not just "things that I decided to one day and spend effort into". Like most words, habit refers to both this definition and things that I found myself doing and ended up abstracting away. When someone says, "fix your bad habits", they don't mean habits in the constructed way.
What I mean by introspection isn't deciding to form a habit. It's kinda orienting yourself in the direction of understanding why you might perhaps do that habit. And this is not a simple question, nor does it have a simple answer. It might take years for a habit to naturally dissolve. But at least that is what I am getting at.
"It would be amazing if habits magically emerged from comprehensive introspection"
This is literally why I introspect. I have reasons to believe it works, but it sounds too good so whatever. From memory reconsolidation perspective and understanding of the mind as a system, there shouldn't be any reason why you can't form effortless good habits (and do effortless dissolving of bad habits). Note that, from my experience, this takes > 3 years of moderate focus.
I think we probably have a different experience of what works for us, which is (of course) totally fine and not unexpected.
For me, habits must be consciously decided things. I can introspect forever, but I need to create a system (supported by habits) in order to set myself up for success.
I appreciate the thoughtful and interesting reply, thank you!
This has the distinct flavor of a Kaizen approach to continuous improvement. Well done! Love the idea of using shortcuts for this. I learnt. Thank you.
I’m doomed :) I posted on another comment but there are other more passive streaks in place too. I only have 2-3 apps on the Home Screen and a 6 app “Siri suggested” widget that cycles the apps based on how I use my phone. These means I’m training the iOS algo to “prompt” these healthier app uses and they show up.
It seems silly, why not just put those apps on the Home Screen? For me, there’s something to the passive nature that reinforces the “this is what I do” vs “this is what I have to do” that keeps me on track.
for me what works is widgets on my phone home screen "press to complete" and scheduling my time. no prompts because i ignore them, no opening the habit tracking app because i won't bother
I like this! Simple. I have the same problem with prompts. The worst for me in the past was when I did the behavior but forgot to log it. Then I’d get the depressing “you broke the streak” prompts and give up.
Worth noting the first goal is to just do the behavior, the Streaks app prompt is just a safety net. If all goes well, I should only see the prompt if I’m about to miss. My own internal habit development keeps the streak alive.
Key to this process, for me, is that the habit tracking and reminders are secondary actions. No active tracking of habits, reminders only show up rarely. I’m doing the behavior without any time of prompt.
If you’re looking to do this too, I’d recommend picking something very small and not over doing it.
Also, a big thank you to the developer of Streaks, Quinten. He checked over the Shortcuts workflow and even shipped an update to make this is a bit easier to do now.