5 Ways to Actually Make Your Habits Stick (Evidence-Based)

(instrumental music plays) You are what you repeatedly do. Whatever patterns you have in your life right now, that's who you are. Did you know that most people, when they start to try to lock in a new habit, by day 19 they quit? Habits are simply a skill you can learn. You can set yourself up for success. You can master the skill of learning new patterns. You can use these five things and set up a system to help you win. This is the shortcut to making new habits stick. Let's do this. (clock ticking) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited that you're here because I have so much to teach you and to share with you. This is gonna be one of those conversations where you get to benefit from all the mistakes that I've made, because boy oh boy when it comes to changing behavior, I am one stubborn, lazy, lacking willpower kinda person. I have had to figure out how to hack my way through tips and tricks to changing, and we're gonna be talking about habits today, and I'm gonna share with you the five essential secrets and tools. You can call these things whatever the heck you want, they just work, and I'm gonna avalanche you with takeaways today, so get ready. You're gonna not only wanna bookmark this and listen to it two or three times, but you're gonna wanna come back to this over and over and over again because this is gold, pure gold. This is the shortcut to making new habits stick. But before I jump in, I also wanted to just take a beat and welcome you, if you're brand new, to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. This is one of those episodes that I know you're gonna share with everybody that you care about, and so if somebody that loves you sent you this, I wanna say thank you. Thank you for taking the time and finding the time to hit play and to listen to something that is gonna set you up to win this year. Thank you for being interested in your own improvement. Thank you for wanting to learn shortcuts and things that you can do in order to make new habits stick, because that's what we're gonna be talking about. So the fact that you chose to listen to this tells me something about you. It tells me you're my kinda person because you're looking to learn and you're interested in improving yourself, and I just think that's super cool. And the other thing that I think is really cool in life is the more that I can save you the headaches and the heartaches that I've caused myself because I didn't know what I was doing, I was Ms. Let's Set Some Goals, Let's Go For It For A Week And Then Let's Get Tired And Blow It Off And Feel Like A Loser, well, it took me a long time to realize that habits are simply a skill you can learn. You're designed to learn new behavior. Your mind and your body, they're actually wired to learn patterns, and you can use this to your advantage. And so today, I am going to give you everything that I've learned the hard way to come up with five essential strategies that you can use all day long, any time you wanna lock in a new habit. And once you learn these five things, holy cow, you're gonna be unstoppable. You can set yourself up for success. You can master the skill of learning new patterns. You can set your environment up to support you in remembering. You don't have to manage this in your head. You don't have to wait for willpower. You don't have to be superhuman. You can use these five things and set up a system to help you win, and that's what we're gonna do today. You know, I believe that you are one decision away from a different life because when you make a decision to change, it is like tipping a domino in an entirely new direction. The decision begins the change, but how do you actually make the change stick? That's where habits come in. And I really wanna bottom line the word habits because people love to throw the word habits around because you sound super smart, right? But let's be honest with each other. You wanna know what a habit is? It's a pattern. That's it. Have you ever heard that phrase, "You are what you repeatedly do"? I'm gonna say it again. You are what you repeatedly do. The word repeatedly is the most important word there, because whatever patterns you have in your life right now, that's who you are. And I wanna use the word patterns right now because, again, I find that, you know, the big words like habits, it makes you sound really smart, but let's just dumb it down so we can embrace what we're talking about. All we're talking about when it comes to making new habits stick is how do I make a pattern automatic? Maybe you wanna make it a habit to floss your teeth every night. Maybe you wanna make it a habit to get up and exercise. Maybe you want to make it a habit to save more money or become better at meditation, or anything at all that you want to be a pattern. There is a science and a system for how you can make patterns stick, and here's one of the fundamental things that I'm gonna probably talk about over and over with you again today, which is the nature of human behavior is this, you are wired to learn patterns, and that's both a good thing and kind of a bad thing, because here's the thing about patterns, which are basically habits, patterns are designed to repeat. And so technically speaking, you can't just break a pattern. You have to interrupt it, and here comes the big part, replace it with something new. And one other thing I want you to really keep in mind is this, you already have patterns in your life. You do. You know, if you wake up every day and you hit the snooze button five times, that's a pattern. That's what you repeatedly do, and what you repeatedly do becomes who you are. And so one of the first things I want you to think about as we jump into this is I want you to think about who do you wanna become?What kind of person do you want to be? Because when you start to marry your vision for the kind of person that you want to be with the new patterns that you want to learn, what's really cool is that since you are what you repeatedly do, the new habits start to become part of your identity. For example, let's just go back to the snooze alarm. I was a massive snoozer my whole life. My first decision every morning was to procrastinate by hitting the snooze button. That was a habit, it was a pattern, I repeatedly did it, and that meant I was the kind of person that couldn't get out of bed. I was the kind of person that was hitting the snooze alarm. And one thing that's helped me a lot is thinking about, "Well, Mel, what kind of person do you want to be?" I don't want to be the kind of person that starts the day by procrastinating and bed rotting and spending an hour looking at social media. I want to be the kind of person that gets out of bed and gets going and has a rock solid morning routine, which, by the way, just another pattern, just another habit. But when you start to also think about the fact that the patterns and habits that you want to make stick, they're not really about what you should be doing. They're much bigger. They're about who you want to become. Now they become even more interesting and important because it's one thing to say to yourself, "I should stop hitting the snooze button. I should stop bed rotting. I should stop doing all that," you're never gonna develop a positive pattern that way. I want you to think, "I want to become the kind of person that takes care of themselves. I want to become the kind of person that prioritizes their time. I want to become the kind of person that is stronger than my mood in the moment, that I align my action with the things I want to do." That's a pattern, by the way, that you can learn, to be able to take action regardless of how you feel. And so, I'm so excited about this for you because this is the gateway to a whole new experience of life, and it doesn't have to be hard. You just need these five things based on the research that I've learned the hard way that are gonna help you identify the patterns that make you proud of the person that you're becoming and that align with the vision that you have for your life and the simple things that make it easy to repeat the patterns, 'cause that's all that this is. Let's just dumb it down. You're capable, I'm capable. Let's remove all the drama and let's remove all the fancy academic stuff and let's just learn how to do this, okay? Great. Now, one more thing. Here's how this is gonna go down. You know, I was thinking about the fact that I gotta talk about habits, because you guys are slamming the inbox. It's the time of year everybody wants to talk about habits. I love it, I love it, I love it. Let's learn some new patterns. And the truth is, there's no new information here. And I sat down to record an episode for you and I'm like, "Wait a minute, I already have this extraordinary conversation that I recorded, like, a year ago, and it's all the same stuff I would say to you now." So instead of having this pattern in my life where I keep reinventing the wheel, why don't I just create a new pattern and I set up the most important conversation you could listen to right now? Because even if you heard me share this with you over a year ago, these five things that I'm gonna teach you, you're a different person right now. You have a different vision for who you want to be. You need this reminder. And so even if you start to listen, you're like, "I think I've heard Mel talk about this," darn straight you have, because the advice that works is the advice that works, and these five things are the five things I need to remind myself of, I need to remind you of, because this is what will make your habits stick. And so here's how this is gonna roll. I have got your fellow listeners from the Mel Robbins Podcast lined up. How about we get this party on patterns and habits started, okay? Let's kick it off with a question from a listener named Eric.