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Forming new habits is often seen as a huge commitment that only a few fortunate souls - blessed with a naturally high dosage of willpower - can ever accomplish. The rest of us can only content ourselves with silly attempts to change, only to default to our old ways.
But the problem isn't really with forming new habits. It's our approach to forming new habits that makes life difficult.
To make your life much easier, here are two simple ways you can use to form new habits that will help you get great results without really trying!
Half Habits
The most common approach to forming a new habit is to attempt to create it with a single leap from your old way to the new way, without any transition period. You smoke and you want to quit smoking. You drink coffee and you want to cut it out of your diet. You don't exercise and want to join the gym to exercise on a daily basis. To achieve your goals, you rely on commitment and willpower.
But as you have experienced time and time again, your willpower will dwindle a few weeks down the road （if you survive that long） and drag your commitment down with it, leaving you with your old ways… if not worse!
That's because to go from one way to a totally new way is unnatural. It comes as a shock to your mind, body and soul and they will fight fiercely to return to a way that is familiar to them.
What's the solution, I hear you ask?
Well, that's a good question, and I'm glad you asked it :）
A solution I would recommend would be to go for half habits.
What does that mean?
Rather than trying to commit FULLY to a new habit, you simply take a step in its direction.
For example, instead of immediately joining a gym in order to become healthy, if your body has almost forgotten what "physical activity" means, incorporate a mini-exercise routine at home. That way, you don't feel guilty that you're not going to the gym every day, and you're not taking something on that will be met with resistance. It's a small adjustment that you won't have difficulty keeping up.
An advantage to half habits is that you accept that you need to go through a transition period from old habit to new habit. You accept this as something natural and not a failing on your part.
Your focus then turns to the progress that you are making instead of the times you fall off the wagon!
"Oh great! I exercised four times this week!" instead of "OH MY GOD! I haven't exercised for THREE days this week!"
And with half habits, you can effectively take on a number of habits without feeling any pressure!
I managed to cut down on coffee and soft drinks, started blogging almost daily, reduced the amount of food I eat, began waking up early in the morning and developed a range of other mini-habits that have popped up here and there without me making any serious attempt to form them. The last time I drank a soft drink I actually felt disgusted because I didn't enjoy the taste （my preference is moving towards drinking water）. I didn't force myself to stop drinking soft drinks. I simply said to myself: I would like to start drinking more water and removing soft drinks from my diet. And I went in that direction with the acceptance that I might be having a soft drink occasionally.
Another great advantage to half habits is that some habits help reinforce each other!
Cutting down on coffee helps you get more quality sleep, which helps make it easier to wake up early, which gives you more time to do quality work, etc.
You transition towards new habits without feeling burdened by unrealistic commitments and can enjoy making progress in your life.
And what's the other way you can form habits easily…？
Timeless Habits
One of the major obstacles we face in trying to adopt new habits into our lives is simply that we don't have the time to do so!
If you want to start exercising, you need to fit exercise sessions into your schedule. But that involves some planning, and you might already have too many commitments that stop you from squeezing in exercise into your busy week.
But that doesn't mean you cannot develop new and positive habits!
Not having the time is no reason to remain stagnant. There are many small adjustments and changes we can do here and there that require no extra time whatsoever!
Do you need any extra time to replace coffee with green tea, or soft drinks with water?
Do you need any extra time to sprinkle your day with a few more smiles?
There are SO many ways we can move forward in life without needing to make any hefty time commitments, and these changes will help us realize how easy it is to form new habits and will also lead us to enjoy the many benefits these habits can bring to our lives!
Give these two ways a try, and find out how easy it is to form new habits and move your life forward!
The Golden Nuggets From This Article
To make the application of the lessons in this post easier to apply, here's a summary of the key points mentioned, split between Theory （the ideas you should bear in mind） and Practice （what you need to do to make use of what you just read）
Theory
* Forming new habits isn't hard, nor does it require a lot of willpower. The problem is with ourapproach to habit-formation
* There are two simple ways to habit-formation that makes it easy to accomplish: 1） Half Habits 2） Timeless Habits
* Half Habits: Rather than aim to form a new habit fully, aim to make progress in the directionof the new habit. You will gradually re-adjust, and the approach is much more natural than expecting to form a new habit with a single leap
* Timeless Habits: There are many, many habits we can develop that require absolutely no time commitment. Replacing coffee with green tea, or soft drinks with water doesn't take any extra time to do but can bring about great benefits into our lives
Practice
* Half Habits: For all the habits you intend on adopting, instead of focusing on the destination （forming the new habit fully）, think of the next step you can take in the direction of these habits and make a slight adjustment to adopting these habits
* Timeless Habits: Come up with ways you can make simple changes to what you eat, how you behave, etc. that can bring about positive results in your life, without needing to free up any time on your schedule to form these new habits
形成新的習慣總是被視作巨大的義務去承擔，只有少數(shù)幸運的人-以自己極其巨大的自制力來祈禱-可以成功實現(xiàn)。 我們其余的人只能滿足于愚蠢的試圖改變，最終只得以墨守陳規(guī)，延續(xù)我們以往的生活方式。
實際上，問題不在于形成新的習慣。是我們對于形成新習慣的研究（approach,亦可看做嘗試的意圖）使得生活變得復雜化。
要使你的生活簡單化，這里有兩個方法你可以試一下，它會使你得到很大的收獲而不用真正去嘗試。
半個習慣
最常見的形成新習慣的嘗試是試圖在你舊的生活方式中創(chuàng)造一個簡單的跳躍到新的方式， 而缺少了一個過渡階段。你吸煙而你想戒了；你喝咖啡而你想把它從食譜上去除；你從不鍛煉但想去體育館進行一個有基礎(chǔ)的每日鍛煉。你依靠承諾與毅力來實現(xiàn)你的目標（靠的住嗎，你的意志有多堅定？）
但當你反復的做鍛煉時，你的意志力衰減了，在將來的某個時候（如果你活到了那時）也使得你的承諾隨之衰弱，讓你重新回歸舊的生活方式…如果你覺得還過的去的話！
那時因為從一種生活方式起步到另一種是不自然的。 它就如一道閃電般震驚了你的大腦，身體和心靈，它們會猛烈的反抗斗爭去回到那對它們而言再熟悉不過的方式中。
我聽到你問道，什么是解決方法？
嗯，這個問題問的好，我很高興你問如此一個問題 大笑
我提倡的一個方法是去尋找 半個習慣（half habits）.
那是什么？
與其試著去 全部的 委托一個新的習慣，你可以簡單的按如下指導步驟實行。
距離而言，與其馬上辦張體育館的卡去鍛煉來變得健康，如果你的身體已經(jīng)幾乎忘記了"體力活動"是什么，在家里里混入一些小的日常鍛煉。那樣的話，你不會因你沒有每天去健身館感到罪惡，并你不會考慮它會遇到阻力。只要一個小的調(diào)整你不會后繼的困難。
對于 半個習慣 的一個優(yōu)勢是你得承認你需要經(jīng)歷一個過渡期從舊習慣到新習慣。你接受它如一個自然而然的事物而非失敗的一部分。
你的焦點轉(zhuǎn)向你正在做的事情進展中，而非你脫離時代的洪流！（Your focus then turns to the progress that you are making instead of the times you fall off the wagon!）翻譯不一定準確
"哦，太好了！我這周鍛煉了4次"取代了"我的上帝！我這周還有3天沒做鍛煉！"
于是，和 一半習慣， 你可以高效的采取了一些習慣而不感到任何壓力！
我設(shè)法減少和咖啡和軟飲料，幾乎每天寫博客，減少我吃的食物，開始清晨更早起床，并且制定了一系列的小習慣（它們已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)在生活中的各個地方）,而我沒有去做很大的嘗試去形成它們。最后一次我喝軟飲料時，我并感覺惡心因為我不喜歡它的味道（我的偏好正偏向喝純凈水）.我沒有強迫自己停止喝它，我只是對自己說：我想先喝更多的水，而非軟飲料出現(xiàn)在我的食譜上。我從那個方向去接受，我可能偶爾喝一杯。
另一個很大的優(yōu)勢就在于有些習慣有助于加強彼此！
減少喝咖啡的次數(shù)可以幫助您獲得更多高質(zhì)量的睡眠，這有利于更容易早起，讓你有更多的時間做有質(zhì)量的工作，等等。
你過渡到新的習慣，而不感到負擔不現(xiàn)實的承諾，并可以享受在生活中取得進步。
還要什么其他方式可以容易的形成新習慣？
永恒的習慣
對于我們面對試圖適應新習慣進入我們的生活的一大阻礙是很簡單的：我們沒有時間去這樣做！
如果你想開始鍛煉，您需要合適的鍛煉階段到您的日程安排。但是，這涉及到一些規(guī)劃，而且您肯已經(jīng)有太多使得你把鍛煉擠入繁忙的一周的承諾。
但這不意味著你可以停止開始新而積極向上的習慣！
沒有時間不是繼續(xù)保持停滯遲鈍的原因。有太多的小的調(diào)整和改變我們可以去做，而這一點兒也不需要諸如額外的時間！
你需要額外的時間去把咖啡換成綠茶， 軟飲料換成純凈水嗎？
你需要額外的時間用少許的微笑點綴你的每一天的生活嗎？…
有太多的 許多 我們可以在生活中前進，無需做什么極大的時間承諾，這些改變會幫助我們了解實在是太容易去形成新習慣，它們會帶我們?nèi)ジ惺茉谏钪杏楷F(xiàn)的諸多好處！
來吧！給這兩種方法一次嘗試的機會，發(fā)現(xiàn)有多容易去形成新的生活習慣，并推進你的生活！
