Keystone Habits - Where Positive Change Begins
Article Summary
As a Certified Fitness Trainer since 2002 Kathie has become obsessed with behavior modification, especially modification by creating habits.
Kathie says, “If I can help my clients create healthy habits then and only then can I teach them the fitness knowledge they need to know to improve their lives.”
Keystone habits are the very best way to create healthy habits and create positive change in your life easily. Today’s article, YouTube Video, and podcast episode explains keystone habits in detail.
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Keystone Habits are Where Positive Change Begins.
We have habits everywhere in our lives, but certain routines — keystone habits — lead to a cascade of other actions because of them.
What are Keystone Habits?
The term is coined by Charles Duhigg in the book The Power of Habit.
They are habits that produce something of a ripple effect – in which one little positive change has the potential to produce other positive changes in all different parts of someone's routine. By all accounts, then, they appear like quite handy little things.
Before you can begin forming keystone habits, you need to understand the habit loop. From the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg believes that 3 elements make up this habit loop, the cue, the routine and the reward.
The Habit Loop is a neurological loop that governs any habit.
“The habit loop consists of three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. Understanding these elements can help in understanding how to change bad habits or form better ones." - Duhigg, C.
An example of a habit loop is this:
You walk by the break room, the smell of coffee wafting out prompts you to go pour yourself a cup. This cue might be your last action, walking by and smelling the coffee, or your location. You wouldn't have smelled the coffee if you weren't just outside the break room, after all.
How keystone habits affect change
According to Duhigg,
When researchers look at how people change their habitual behaviors, they find when some changes occur, it seems to set off a chain reaction that causes other patterns to change as well.
The power of a keystone habit draws from its ability to change your self-image.
Imagine how much easier and more fulfilling your lifestyle could be if you discovered one or two keystone habits that naturally put the rest of your life in place.
So often, we struggle to live the way we want to simply because we don't have the willpower to make different decisions. Whether it's having the discipline to eat healthily, the courage to take a risk, the energy to volunteer more often, or the drive to perform better at work, we delay these choices — even though we know they are important — simply because we don't have the willpower to make something new happen today.
Improving your lifestyle and becoming the type of person who “has their act together” isn’t nearly as hard as you might think. In fact, you might need just one keystone habit before the dominoes start falling everywhere.
What are you doing when everything falls into place? What is your keystone habit?
Find it and do more of it.
Watch today’s episode here:
Listen to today’s episode here:
Celebrate Small Wins
How does one identify their keystone habits? Identifying keystone habits is tricky. To find them, you have to know where to look.
Detecting keystone habits means searching out certain characteristics.
Keystone habits offer what is known within academic literature as “small wins.” They help other habits to flourish by creating new structures, and they establish cultures where change becomes contagious.
One of the easiest ways to identify and start building keystone habits is to celebrate and identify your small wins every day.
Keep a list of “small wins” throughout your day and, at the end of the week, see which ones repeated the most—and made you feel good for the longest time afterward. Those are your keystone habits.
I like to do this in my Notion Journal. In fact, simply learning Notion and documenting things in my Notion Journal became a keystone habit.
If you focus on changing or cultivating keystone habits, you can cause widespread shifts.
Keystone Habits Make Change Possible
According to Duhigg, the importance of keystone habits lies entirely in the fact that they make further change possible. He writes,
“Families who are in the habit of eating together often have kids who get better grades and are more confident. People who are in the habit of making their bed exercise more regularly.”
Willpower helps people succeed beyond their intentions. Other studies have found that as people improve willpower in one area of their lives — in the gym or with their eating habits — good habits then spill over into other parts of their lives, such as how they manage their money or perform at work, Duhigg reports.
Exercising regularly is a habit many of us want to build to get stronger, look better, and stay healthy. For many, people this is a keystone habit, because when they exercise regularly, they also make healthier eating choices, procrastinate less, wash their dishes earlier, and even use their credit cards less!
What triggers a habit?
Cue 1: Time
Time is perhaps the most common way to trigger a new habit. Common morning habits are just one example. Waking up in the morning usually triggers a cascade of habits: go to the bathroom, take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, make a cup of coffee, etc.
Here are eight simple keystone habits that can change your life for the better.
Having family dinners. Family dinners can be enjoyable and productive. (Bonus points for putting cell phones away during dinner!)
Making your bed every morning.
Exercising regularly.
Tracking what you eat.
Developing daily routines. (Using Notion)
Meditating.
Planning out your days.
In conclusion
Humans are largely consistent and routine, so what you do without thinking is paramount. The interplay between your routines is more powerful than you realize. Your entire life is a combination of your keystone habits, so make them worth holding.
What are you going to do to build keystone habits today? What are you doing thus far?