How to Build a Habit That Sticks: 7 Steps

The Short Answer

How Do You Build a Habit That Sticks?

Pick one behavior tied to a clear result, shrink it to a minimum version, anchor it to a cue you already have, make the right action easy, give it an immediate reward, plan for the missed day, and grow it only after the small version is consistent.

This is the method in Chapter 3 of Become Your Version of Rich by Dr. Paul Borosky, DBA, MBA. Need the idea first? Read discipline vs. habit. A habit that a whole team repeats is a process, so see what an SOP is. It belongs to the Become Your Version of Rich guide.

The Method

Seven Steps From One Behavior to One Habit

Pick the easy way in, then follow the order. Skipping steps is why most habits stall.

1. Pick one behavior tied to a clear result. Build a small new habit or replace one you already have. Replacing is often easier because the cue is already there. Start small and winnable, not with your worst habit.
2. Shrink it to a minimum version. This is where most people fail: they try to install the full-sized habit on day one. Do the opposite. First goal is consistency, not performance.
3. Anchor it to a reliable cue. Decide exactly when and where, and tie it to something you already do. “After I walk the dogs, I drive to the gym” beats “I will work out more.” The existing action fires the new one. The glossary calls this the cue.
4. Design your environment. Make the good action easy and the competing one hard. Lay out workout clothes the night before. Keep the snacks out of the house. Set the transfer to run automatically. You are not trying to be stronger. You are trying to make the right thing the path of least resistance.
5. Give it an immediate reward, and track it. The real payoff is usually months or years away, and the brain does not reinforce on distant payoffs. Build in a small reward today: a visible tracker, a favorite podcast saved for the walk, or telling someone who is rooting for you.
6. Plan for the missed day before it happens. Missing once is a lapse. Missing repeatedly is a new pattern. Restart at the very next cue, not next Monday.
7. Grow it only after the small version is consistent. Consistency first, size second. Keep the habit on the single page where you keep your version of rich.

Step Two In Depth

Shrink It Until You Cannot Say No

Dr. Paul puts step two this way in Become Your Version of Rich.

Five minutes, two pages, ten dollars: the size should embarrass you a little. The minimum version is not a final goal. It is a way to make the cue and the action fire the same way every day, which is what makes it a habit. Size comes later, and Dr. Paul says it will come.

Step Six In Depth

When You Miss, Diagnose Design

When you slip, do not just feel bad. Ask four questions:

1. Was the habit too big?
2. Was the cue unreliable, tied to something that does not happen at the same time each day?
3. Was my environment quietly working against me?
4. Did the habit give me any immediate benefit, or did it feel like pure cost?

Most failed habits are not failures of character. They are failures of design, and design is fixable. If you are replacing a habit rather than building one, take it apart first. What is the cue, the thing that happens right before? What is the old response? What are you actually getting, the reward or relief underneath? Then design a new response that delivers a similar payoff off the same cue. Dr. Paul’s night snacking, for example, is not about hunger. The cue is fatigue and the television, and the payoff is winding down. A replacement only works if it hits that cue and payoff.

How Long It Takes

Forget Twenty-One Days

One of the best-known habit studies is more honest than the myth.

The popular “twenty-one days” has no real evidence behind it. In a well-known 2010 study by Phillippa Lally and colleagues, the time it took a behavior to become automatic ran from about 18 days to 254, with a median near 66, and a number of people could not be modeled at all within the study period. The study ran 84 days, so the longer estimates are modeled, not observed. The honest answer is that it depends on the habit, how often you do it, and how stable the setting is.

Some simple routines feel automatic within a week. Bigger ones take months. For the if-then structure in step three, the research behind it comes from psychologist Peter Gollwitzer, whose work on implementation intentions shows that a specific plan, “when X happens, I will do Y,” tends to beat a vague intention. And one more caution: the habit of managing your habits never really ends. It is a craft you keep getting better at.

Sources: Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010), How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world, European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998-1009. Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999), Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans, American Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503.

How This Helps a Business Owner

Three Habits That Pay Off in a Business

The habit method is personal, but the best examples are business ones. Here are three worth building first.

One Honest Caution

A Habit Can Be Knocked Loose, and Some Need Help

Do This Tomorrow

Tomorrow and Thirty Days From Now

1. Pick one habit to build or replace. Shrink it to a version so small you cannot talk yourself out of it. Write the result you want.
2. Anchor it: “After I do X, I will do Y.” Change one thing in your environment and add one small immediate reward.
3. Automate one transfer toward an emergency fund, a debt, or a long-term investment, the moment you get paid.
4. Once a week, count how often you did it, decide what to adjust, and restart at the next cue if you slipped. At thirty days, count: if you planned it on twenty days and hit it sixteen, that is eighty percent.

That percentage, climbing week over week, is your real evidence, long before any big result shows up. You are not aiming for perfection at thirty days. You are aiming for a behavior that is clearly becoming more consistent. For a famous habit tracker built with a quill and a notebook, see Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues. For the warning on what happens with no system, see how Antoine Walker went broke.

The Book

The Full Method Is in Chapter 3

This page walks the seven steps. Become Your Version of Rich adds the people behind them.

• The seven-step method, with the replacing-a-habit breakdown
• Warren Buffett, Benjamin Franklin, and Napoleon, three lives run on repeated behavior
• A South Florida business owner who turned personal habits into company processes
• The Antoine Walker cautionary tale
• Daily Actions and the thirty-day hit-rate count

Get the Book on Amazon →

Keep Going

More From Chapter 3

FAQ

Common Questions About Building Habits