Five Reasons to Explain Why Rituals are More Effective than Habits

The biggest challenge in creating and maintaining habits We often get excited about starting a new habit, but this enthusiasm fades after a few days. The best example of this is making new decisions at the beginning of each year. Let's say you want to make running a weekly habit.

Note: This article is from Brooks Duncan, a chartered accountant and software developer, who talks about turning habits into rituals.

What usually happens is that you start with enthusiasm for the first two weeks and then slack off and stop altogether. Only 8% of new year's resolutions are truly successful.

If every year a million people start with a new resolution, only 80,000 of them will be able to complete it; that's very few, and of course you don't want to be part of the 92% of people who don't stick to their new habits, so why is it so hard to start and maintain a habit?

It is not a matter of information, of course; If it were, you would have had it a long time ago and solved the problem. Since we know that regular exercise is good for us, why not do this? And how many times have you read that getting up early can help increase your productivity? So why don't you get up early? The answer to this riddle is not clear.

In fact, it took me years to figure out why I failed to maintain these habits. If you met me a few years ago, my habits were staying up late, being late for work, and always feeling like I was falling behind in my work even after I got home.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stick to good habits for more than a few days, and then I found out why. What I've discovered is that rituals are more effective than habits.

Five reasons why it's so hard to build and stick to good habits

1. Habits are not clear

One of the reasons we don't start with something is that what we want to do is not clear enough. Saying, for example, that you want to become confident, you want to stop procrastinating, or you want to be positive—these are all good things to do, but they are very vague, and we logically understand what they mean, but then we think about how we are going to be able to implement these changes. As a result, we do nothing. The same thing happens with customs, which are ambiguous.

If you want to practice meditation, what does that mean? Do you need to find and bring a spiritual guide from India to guide you through a session? Do you learn it on your own or in a group setting? Do you need a special pillow? What you need is clarity. This is why rituals are most effective because they are specific. When things are murky, our natural course of action is to take no action. It's very hard to get started, which brings me to the next reason habits don't work.

2. Habits don't encourage you to start practicing them

One of the secrets to fighting procrastination is to make the first move super easy. If it makes no sense to refuse to start, do you want to go running? Simply tying your shoes should be the first step, or do you want to get into the habit of flossing? Just clean one tooth.

The challenge we face is that we tend to think a lot in advance, and when we want to get more exercise, we think about the super body we want, the compliments we will get, and all the extra energy we will get. This is very superficial thinking, so what is the first step? This is where most people fail and then never start.

It's okay to think about the outcome, as long as you know what the first step is and want that step to be very easy. You have no excuse not to do it and no probable reason to refuse it. So, when you want to try to form a new habit, make the first step clear. This is why rituals are so powerful and effective; they force you to identify steps 1, 2, 3, etc. and make it easy to get started.

3. Habits don't explain why you need them

Remember that feeling when you were excited and driven to start a new habit? This source of motivation is something you can talk about anytime you want. The problem is that we don't know how to get it back when we want to.

Motivation comes and goes. One day we have enough motivation, and on other days we lack it completely, and when we depend on motivation to start and continue, we prepare ourselves for failure and for inconsistent results, and one of the tricks to counter this is to know the reason. So, why do you want to acquire this habit? This is not an easy question to answer.

Your first instinct is to give a superficial answer.

Let's take the habit of exercising as an example. Why do you want to get into the habit of exercising? Common answers include:

• "I want to look good."
• "I want to wear my old clothes again."
• "I want to eat what I want and look good."

These are not bad reasons I sometimes say these things to myself in the mirror, but they are not effective in maintaining habits; otherwise, you will not have problems with this habit—or any other habit—as you need to find the real reason, and it is often a deep reason.

For example, the reason I exercise regularly is because I don't want to end up like my grandparents, who always complain about joint pain. They cannot move, live in pain every day, and cannot enjoy their old age. This is the reason for my habit of exercising.

And you certainly do not disagree with me on this point. Some of the answers I've heard from private clients include things like:

"I want to have the energy to be there for my kids when they are older, so I can be a good parent. My parents weren't around because they worked so hard and were always tired during the time they should have been with me. I don't want that for my kids."

And another client said, “I feel strong when I exercise, and it makes me feel manly because I can protect my family and loved ones.” Whatever the reason behind your habit, go beyond the superficial reasons.

Write down the reasons and read them whenever you feel unwilling to maintain your habits. It will encourage you again if you choose the right reason; every ritual naturally includes this, which is one of the secrets that make rituals effective.

4. Habits are not fixed

Most advice assumes that we know how to maintain our habits. It's like email: we're supposed to magically know how to organize our cluttered inboxes and handle information overload. If you are like most of us, no one has told us how to deal with this. It is not part of our educational system, especially when it comes to building and maintaining habits.

Everyone makes it look easy—walk more, get up earlier, practice meditation—but what they don't tell you is how to start, how to keep going, and most of all, how to fit it into your schedule without disrupting the rest of your life.

We all have people to take care of, bills to pay, dishes to wash, and lots of other things to do. Incorporating a new habit into your life is not easy, let alone maintaining it when many other things may seem more important. When everything seems to be a priority, it's hard.

Without a plan and a solid system for organizing your life, maintaining habits can feel like a full-time second job. If you want to control your habit, you need to turn it into a system-supported ritual. This raises the next point.

5. Lack of a step-by-step system

To increase your chances of taking action, there are three things to consider:

• You must be willing to do it "out of habit".
• You need an easy-to-do first step.
• You need a step-by-step system that is proven to be effective and easy to follow.

Once you have those three things in place, you have a formula for success. The analogy I like to use is that when you cook a meal for the first time, no matter what you're cooking, you're excited about it, and you'll likely follow a recipe with step-by-step instructions on how to prepare it. Thus, this system works step by step to ensure that we adhere to these habits and make them part of our daily lives.