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  • If you are like most people, there is a gap  between the person you are and the person you  

  • wish to be. There are little things you think you  should do and big things you ought to achieve.

  • From working out regularly, eating healthilylearning a language, working on your novel,  

  • reading more or simply actually doing  your hobby instead of browsing reddit.

  • But it sometimes seems that to achieve  your goals, you have to become a different  

  • person. Someone who is consistent, puts in  more effort, has discipline and willpower.  

  • Maybe you have tried your hardest to be like  that. And it worked! For a while. Until you  

  • find yourself slipping back into your old  ways. In the end, you always seem to fail.  

  • And with every failed attempt, you become more  and more frustrated and annoyed with yourself.

  • If you believesuccess and hustle”  internet, it is all your own fault:  

  • if you don't succeed, you just didn't want it  enough and the failure is all you. But change  

  • is actually hard. And as with most things in  life, understanding why makes things easier.

  • The Jungle

  • Imagine your brain as a lush and  dense jungle. Moving through it,  

  • say to make a decision to do somethingis like moving through an *actual* jungle:  

  • It is hard and it costs energyYour brain hates expending energy,  

  • so it came up with a trick: All your actions and  behaviors leave paths in the jungle of your brain.

  • As you start doing something, you trample down  some plants and make rough, improvised trails  

  • through the undergrowth. The more often you do  the thing, the more pronounced the trail becomes.  

  • Over time it turns into a path that is  easier to tread, so you take it more often  

  • and it turns into a street. As you repeat  doing the thing, over and over for years,  

  • the street turns into a highway. Traversing it  becomes effortless, familiar and comfortable.

  • The more pronounced your brain highwaysthe more you get used to their comfort.  

  • So we continue to use them, which means  we tend to do what we have always done.  

  • This is why change is hard, especially as an adult  

  • when your jungle is criss-crossed by  lots of established streets and highways.

  • To understand how those highways are built  we need to distinguish between two things:  

  • Routines and habits.

  • The Things You Do: Routines and Habits

  • A routine is a sequence of actions that you carry  out the same way every time because they've worked  

  • out well for you. For example, you get the  same ingredients for your favorite dish and  

  • cook them in a certain order, because you like  the taste of the result. Or before going to bed  

  • you set an alarm at 6:30 because  this is when you want to get up.

  • Imagine routines executed by a wise planner. It is  slow and analytical, responsible for strategizing  

  • and mental calculations. The planner is  aware of the future and carefully considers  

  • what kind of result you want. Based on that, it  chooses actions to achieve specific outcomes,  

  • even if they are uncomfortable, like  taking a shower after getting up.

  • Routines can eventually turn into  habits, which feel much easier  

  • because they are basically a sequence of  actions carried out without thinking about them.  

  • You have done them so often before that  your brain considers them rewarding  

  • and a great response to a situation. Sohabit can feel like you're on autopilot.  

  • You don't have to convince yourself to do  something that's a habit - you just do it.

  • The important thing about habits is  that they are set in motion by triggers,  

  • context cues that can be single  things or entire situations,  

  • that give your brain the signal  to start the behavior or action.

  • You already have a lot of triggers in  your life: like when you see your phone,  

  • you almost always unlock the screen. Or you reach  for the seat belt when you sit in a car. Or when  

  • you buy your coffee before work, you also getcookie, even though you aren't actually hungry.

  • Habits are executed by an impulsive toddlerIt responds to your immediate desires, based  

  • on what is around you. Without considering  any longer-term goals. For the toddler,  

  • the future doesn't exist and it hates hard workSo when it notices a trigger, it steers you to  

  • take this easy road inside your brain that leads  to a familiar rewarding result. If you get coffee,  

  • the toddler also wants the cookie, just  because that's what you do every morning.

  • This rewarding feeling is also how most of  your bad habits started: chocolate is tasty,  

  • browsing reddit is occasionally  mildly entertaining.  

  • This is why you repeat these actionseven if they are bad for you.  

  • Rewarding feelings associated with an action  demand to be repeated and so a bad habit is born.

  • While the toddler sounds like  a built-in sabotage mechanism,  

  • it is as important as the wise planner and  actually they work together most of the time!

  • You need your wise planner for thinking big  thoughts and parallel parking and doing your  

  • taxes. But letting your wise planner do everything  would cost too much energy. Outsourcing mundane  

  • and repetitive tasks to habits, managed by  the toddler, allows your brain to easily  

  • manage your daily life, while dealing with more  complex mental challenges at the same time.

  • So if we want to change and introduce  a new behavior into our lives,  

  • we can actually use these energy  saving mechanisms to make it easier.

  • We will focus on small things, not big ones.  

  • Improving your life a little is  so much better than aiming high  

  • and changing nothing. Especially because small  changes can do a lot over months and years.

  • How To Build a Habit

  • If you want to make change easierthe best way may not be to force  

  • it with willpower but to convince your  brain that it's not that big of a deal.  

  • By creating new routines and then turning  them into habits. You want your wise planner  

  • to construct that first trail and then use your  toddler to help initiate the action effortlessly.

  • Let us say, you want to work out  to be fitter, a very common goal.  

  • The first thing to do is to break down this  pretty vague goal into clear, separate actions,  

  • because the idea is to make the action  itself as easy a threshold as possible:  

  • so small it is manageable and so specific  that you don't have to think about it a lot.

  • For example, a tangiblecontrollable action might be  

  • doing ten squatsevery morning. So you  can start by trying to create a routine  

  • but already include clear triggers  that the toddler can pick up later on.

  • Remember, a trigger is nothing more thansignal that you always associate with the action.  

  • They can be visual pointers like seeing  a particular object, like your training  

  • outfit. Or a certain time of day, or a designated  place like a nearby parkor even better, all of  

  • these things combined. The important thing is that  you always start doing your action in a specific  

  • context. This trigger is the start button that  will eventually set off the action automatically.

  • So to establish a home workout habit with ten  squats to begin with, you could make sure to  

  • always do them with your exercise gear on, at the  same place and time, like in your living room at  

  • 8am. Once you have your trigger and actionall you need to do is repeat them regularly,  

  • ideally every day. If you keep going, they  will change from a routine to a habit,  

  • from a trail to a highway. Don't get this wrongthe squats will still take you energy to dobut  

  • the decision to do them will feel much less like  a chore and more like a regular part of your day.

  • While this is simple, it is not easy.

  • Many things you want to turn into habits don't  offer as much instant gratification as wasting  

  • time on reddit. To make your new action easier  to repeat and more likely to be picked up by  

  • the toddler, try to make it pleasurableNot necessarily by rewarding yourself  

  • after you did it, but by making the action  or behavior itself more enjoyable. Like only  

  • listening to your favorite podcast while  working out, or chipping away at your taxes  

  • while you wait for civilization to load the next  round. You need to figure out what works for you.

  • In principle, that's it.

  • Frustratingly simple, like most things you can  do to make your life better. How long it takes  

  • for your toddler to take over and establishhabit varies widely. It depends on the behavior  

  • you are trying to get used to, what kind of person  you are, your stress levels and many more things.  

  • It takes anything between 15 and 250  days until a new habit is kicked off  

  • automatically by its trigger. You won't  know how long it will take for you.

  • Starting is the easy partespecially in the first week or two.  

  • Continuing to do it every day is the hard  part. But it does get easier as you keep going.

  • There are no silver bullets for  change. But the science of habits  

  • is a reminder that it is possibleno matter how old or young you are.  

  • Even if you only end up doing a little more good  stuff or a few new things, that's still a success.  

  • Being a little bit more healthy or knowledgable  is a million times better than being unhappy about  

  • a thing and changing nothing. In the endchange is a direction, not a destination.

  • So now that we hopefully gave you a bit  of insight and motivation, this is the  

  • moment to sell you a thing! But please know, you  do not need to buy anything to work on yourself.

  • Having said that, we struggle with  change as much as anyone else,  

  • so we created our own habit journal, as much for  ourselves as for you. Before we printed anything,  

  • we tested it on ourselves and got  feedback from the Kurzgesagt team.

  • The idea is for you to track your habit  progress for your desired behavior.  

  • There is a tutorial part which guides you through  the hardest part of the process step by step.  

  • You'll get helpful pointers, reflect on your  progress and how you could make things easier for  

  • yourself. Once you get through the tutorial part  the habit journaling starts, regularly interwoven  

  • by examples, science Breaks and reflections that  will hopefully keep the journey interesting.

  • Like our Gratitude Journal it is cloth-boundwith an embossed hardcover and printed on  

  • high-quality paper. Nice to the touch and  with lots of beautiful illustrations this  

  • book is compangion on your personal change  journey, however small or big it may be.

  • Getting things from our shop is  the best way to support Kurzgesagt  

  • and what we try to do here on the  channel. Thank you for watching.

If you are like most people, there is a gap  between the person you are and the person you  

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