Celebrating Your Wins: How to Make New Habits Stick

How many times have any of us tried to create a new habit in our lives only to have it fail almost immediately? I'm looking at you, New Years Resolutions! According to research from the University of Scranton, 23% of people quit their resolution in a week or less and only 19% are able to stick to it long-term. That's a pretty abysmal rate to be sure. It isn't just New Years Resolutions, though. People are constantly looking for ways to self-improve -- to gain a healthy habit or lose an unhealthy habit -- yet often they hit a brick wall early on and revert back to older, habitual behaviors.

I'll be talking a lot about HOW to build new habits both here and on my Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/DJGallupHypnotherapy -- if you haven't checked it out yet). Since psychologists, behavioral designers, and other researchers have been on this topic for some time, we actually have some great info about what works and what doesn't. Just like making any change in your life, it's a good idea to remember that progress is about process. Write down those words somewhere, they're useful to remember. Progress is deeply related to developing processes.

Today, we're going to cover just one element of the process: Celebration. Why? It's my favorite part of habit building, to be honest. Moreover, I think it's the part of the habit building process which is the most often overlooked. Let's say your new habit is going to the gym on a regular basis. You may begin the process by getting a gym membership, buying some cute gym clothes, getting your gear ready, and setting up a scheduled time every day to go. Those are great steps! Yet, you get a couple of weeks into your new routine and find yourself lagging. Conflicts come up in your schedule, for instance. The routine is just not sticking.

The key might be as simple as Celebrating. I know this might sound odd, but it's legit. There are several models out there as to how effective habits "stick", but all of them share one commonality: Celebration or Reward. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The first reason is that an effective habit is one that becomes automatic. A habit, at its best, is your brain's way of opening up room for conscious thought by automating habitual patterns. Your brain is a pattern-making machine and it's connecting the dots all the time, always. When it's gotten the patterns down pat, it relegates those behaviors over to the subconscious mind. If you had to put conscious thought into every little decision throughout your day, you'd be exhausted. (When was the last time you thought about flushing the toilet after going to the bathroom?) Automating processes and freeing up conscious bandwidth makes your brain very happy and in turn makes your life a lot easier. Having habits is, in and of itself, a reward for your conscious mind.

The second reason that Ceberation and Rewards are so important is because of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is part of your brain's reward center and it serves to connect certain behaviors with the feeling of pleasure. Celebrating creates a connection between your habit and a dopamine response. Basically, if you celebrate your new desired behavior, you're much more likely to do it again and again because your brain now finds it pleasurable. It's pretty nifty.

The hack here is that it has to be done at the right time(s). You can celebrate right as you begin the new behavior. You can celebrate during the new behavior. You can celebrate immediately following the new behavior. Anything else just doesn't work as well. Let's take our gym example from earlier. Perhaps your new habit-goal is to get to the gym for an hour each day and spend at least 30 minutes of it on the elliptical machine. I would take a celebratory moment the moment you step onto the machine. I would celebrate a little when you hit 15 minutes into your workout. I would really celebrate just as you finish. Don't wait until you're in the locker room or in the car -- by then it's too late. Our goal is to link the dopamine that comes from celebrating to the behavior in real time.

What does this celebrating look like? Anything, really, as long as it appeals to you. It can be just in your own mind ("Yeah! I'm doing this! This is good for me!") or out loud. It can be a body movement like pumping the air with your fist or clapping or doing a little dance. What you do to celebrate doesn't really matter as long as it's something that resonates with you and elicits a positive emotional response. You know you're doing it right when you really feel it. Heck, even smiling a big smile for a moment will do the trick.

I'm a big goofball at heart. I like to describe myself as "childlike" (not childish!) in a lot of ways. Whenever I finish any project or do an action that I was to reinforce, I celebrate the hell out of it. No more than 30 minutes before my writing this, I posted a new Youtube video and updated my Youtube page with new graphics. I'm not a very "techie" person and doing computer work is not my favorite thing, but I have to do it. So, I celebrated hard. I giggled and danced the Dougie in the mirror. It felt good. In fact, I'm still feeling good from it!

Other examples:

Let's say you're trying to actively eat better. You've tried all the other tips, but you're still drawn to sweets and salty snacks. Make a salad or something healthy for yourself and really amp it up by doing a rampage of celebration. If you're by yourself it's a great idea to say out loud (and with feeling!) "I am excited to live a healthy lifestyle! I know this food is nourishing for me! My body loves this stuff and I'm gonna have such a good poop tomorrow!" If you can't say it out loud, think it to yourself, but keep up the celebrating. Smile as you assemble to salad. Think about how your cells will love all the nutrients. Imagine how much better you're going to sleep by forgoing sugar. I mean, really keep it up for a while. Our goal here is to get us more excited about the salad than about the other options. I know this might be a hard sell, but even if you're kind of faking it at first, your persistence will pay off. Smiling alone releases lots of feel-good chemicals in the body. You'll be surprised how effective a rampage of celebration can be.

Let's say the new habit you're building is taking minibreaks at work. If you have an office job, requiring that you sit at a desk most of the day, it's a good idea to get up, stand, stretch, and walk around for at least 5-10 minutes an hour. Sitting is one of the world's silent killers! Yet, you find that you get wrapped up in email, answering the phone, and finishing whatever you're working on. Once again, the key is to make getting up and moving more compelling my intergrating some celebration. (This is important, because e-mail notifications can also stimulate the dopamine system!)

As you decide to take a mini-break, be happy that you're taking this time because it's genuinely good for you! Take a mini-stretch and notice how good it feels to free up your muscles. Find an open doorway and do a doorway-stretch, pushing your shoulders back. Feel how good it feels to counteract rounded-shoulder posture. Take a lap or two around the office. Get a drink of water. Celebrate the fact that you're really getting your blood moving and helping everything in your body function better. As you return to your desk, celebrate one more time and say to yourself, "I can't wait to do this again in 50 minutes! That was really good!" and then set a timer.

The more you integrate celebration into your day, the more you'll want to do it. I find little moments throughout my day. I like to do it when I'm a cooperative driver who lets people in because I wish more people were cooperative drivers. I like to do it when I drink a glass of water because I know it's healthy for me. I even do it when I decide to put away my electronics in the evening because I'm committed to reducing screen time. Take your small wins early and often. You'll be glad you did.