Habits to reinforce habits

Habits to reinforce habits. I set out to write a blog about the technique of pairing one habit with another to reinforce both. So review your emails while standing and doing some stretches. Put your keys in the same place you put the outgoing mail. The pairings don’t have to make any sense to anyone but you. You can reward yourself with a fun habit to counterbalance an awful habit – gotta pay the bills once a month, so let yourself have ten minutes of your favorite TV show before, and a guilty-pleasure audiobook during, and hey, a piece of chocolate and a cup of tea after.

And then I went full-on data geek and learned some startling insights. HABITS CAN BE BAD. Well, we all know that, but the context I’m referring to is that we can get bored of our good habits and abandon them.

So poke around these articles if you want to learn more:

Fresh Starts, Guilty Pleasures And Other Pro Tips For Sticking To Good Habits, NPR L. Carol Ritchie August 16, 2019

How to Build Healthy Habits, The New York Times, Tara Parker-Pope, June 7, 2021

and the one that startled me –

How Habits Can Get in the Way of Your Goals, Greater Good Science Center, Caroline Benner, June 20, 2018

Hoodie (brand = Life is Good), a gift from my sister. I wear it when I want a snuggle reward.