At the beginning of each year, everyone is motivated to make a change in their life and sets their goals for that year – to lose weight, to start exercising, to quit smoking, to reduce spending and save more money, to spend more time with loved ones, etc.

The problem is that most people, by the end of the year, fail to achieve many of these goals because somewhere along the way they have failed and returned to their old habits. Then, at the beginning of the next year, they set the same goals again, the cycle repeats, and thus for years people spin in a “vicious” circle from which they don’t know how to escape. Does that sound familiar? Maybe it’s you, a family member, or a close friend? If YES, don’t stop reading!

1. Why shouldn’t we rely on motivation?

Most of the time, people rely on motivation to start something. For example, to eat healthy and exercise regularly. The problem is that motivation is not always present when we need it, and in the long run, if we rely on it, we will fail.
“Motivation is what gets us started, but habit is what keeps us going.”, you’ve heard that, right? – Then let me explain how to build a habit.

2. What are habits?

Habits are automated actions or behaviors acquired through frequent repetition of the same actions or behaviors.

Once created, a habit is hard to change. That is why we must strive to build healthy habits that lead us on the path to achieving our goal. Building a habit is a slow and difficult process, which, according to studies, takes on average about 66 days. Depending on the person and the difficulty of the habit, the formation time can vary between 18 and 254 days. One important thing to remember before you start reading the lines below is to try to build only one habit at a time, not several simultaneously. This way, the chances of success are much higher.

3. How to build habits? (The structure of the habit)

3.1. Introduction

Every habit starts with a psychological pattern called the “habit loop.”
This circuit looks like this: Signal (Trigger) –> Action –> Reward

Signal (Trigger) – the signal reminds us that we need to start the HABIT (Action). It can be a place, a specific time, a sound, or something else.
Action – this is the habit we are trying to build or that we have already built (brushing teeth, smoking, eating sweets, etc.)
Reward – it is something we reward ourselves with after we have completed the “Action”. It is different for each person (tasty food, watching a movie, playing video games, going out with friends, etc.)

Here are some examples of habits:

You receive a notification from Facebook (Signal), you open the notification (Action), you see it (Reward).

You are stressed (Signal), you smoke a cigarette (Action), you become calmer (Reward).

3.2. Signal (Trigger)

The signal must be something that happens absolutely every day. Here are some examples – eating, waking up, going to bed, driving to work, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, logging into the computer, and other activities that appear daily in your routine. You do these things every day, so they are a good choice for the "Signal." The chosen signal must allow you to start the Action (Habit) easily and quickly. For example, if you have chosen to build the habit (Action) of learning Spanish for 20-30 minutes every day, it would not be a good idea to choose "Arriving at work" as the Signal (because you probably won't be able to study there). Here is a good example – let's say you have chosen to develop a habit related to training. It would be an excellent idea to sign up for a gym that is on your way back from school or work. That way you will notice your "Signal" (that is, seeing the gym) and when you see it, you will be just a few minutes away from starting the workout. Another important thing is to choose only one "Signal" so that your brain associates this signal only with the habit you are trying to build.

3.3. Action

A big mistake most people make is setting expectations too high for the habit they want to build. For example, they aim to train for an hour and a half, 5-6 days a week, read daily for 30-60 minutes, etc. If you expect to perform that well right from the start of building the habit, you will most likely face great difficulties and it is very likely you will fail. After a few days or maybe weeks, a day will come when you have low willpower levels (maybe because you are sick, tired, etc.). Whatever the reason, these days are inevitable because each of us has bad days. A very important thing to remember is that if your habit is still new, it will require much more willpower to follow it and less and less willpower as the days you practice it pass.

Let's take the example that you are very tired (you have low willpower levels), you come back from school and see the gym, which is your "Signal" and it tells you that you have to train for an hour and a half. However, due to low willpower levels, your brain will do everything possible to convince you not to train. Therefore, you go back home and watch a favorite movie while eating something sweet. After doing this and realizing it, you start telling yourself that you are a failure and that you will never miss a workout again, but this happens a few times and you return to the starting point.

So what can we do? - Usually, when we want to build a useful habit and have decided to start tomorrow, we are very motivated and set very high goals, which condemn us to failure within a certain period. Therefore, a better idea is to set ourselves a "Working Range", which includes the minimum and maximum work we can do to build the habit - in our case, this can be from a minimum of 10 minutes of training to a maximum of 90 minutes of training. Someone who goes to train daily for 10 minutes a day will build a habit of exercising regularly faster than someone who trains half of their days for 1-2 or even 3 hours a day.

THIS IS THE CASE BECAUSE THE ONLY THING THAT WILL LEAD YOU TO BUILDING THE HABIT IS PERSISTENCE!

Here is another example – let's say the habit you are trying to build is to read daily, and instead of setting a goal to read 30 minutes every day, you set a goal to read between 5 and 30 minutes. Thus, when you have low willpower levels, you will read for less time, but you will still be consistent and will not interrupt the habit-building process. Of course, it is recommended to try to do your habit more often towards the upper limit of the "Working Range" you set for yourself, to benefit from the advantages of the healthy habit you are trying to build, but in this case, this can be done gradually or on the principle of self-regulation – when you feel good and more motivated, you stick to the upper limit of the "Working Range," and when you feel tired and have little desire to act, you simply do the action for a shorter time, but DO NOT skip it!

3.4. Reward

There are 2 important requirements after which we can choose what our reward will be.

It must come immediately after completing the "Action." If you tell yourself that your reward is a better appearance after 6 months of training, this is a weak "Reward" because your brain will not associate this reward with your "Action" since the reward is too far in the future. A good example of a "Reward" is to immediately make yourself a very tasty and healthy meal after training or watch your favorite series, go out with friends, etc. And because the "Reward" comes immediately after the "Action," your brain more easily links the "Action" (in this case – training) to the "Reward" (in this case – tasty food, watching the series, going out with friends).
The reward must be PLEASANT.
For example, good rewards are – rest, games, tasty food, sex, going out with friends, etc. The more pleasant your reward is, the easier it will be to follow your habit. If the habit you are trying to build is to take between 5 and 10,000 steps a day, for example, as a reward you could watch your favorite series.
One of the main reasons we fail is that we do not find the habit we want to build enjoyable. This can be changed by choosing the right reward.
A 2014 study at Duke University shows that we not only perform better when we enjoy the task we are doing, but we also get less tired.

3.5. Summary:

Choose a single signal that reminds you to do the action and that occurs daily in your routine. (Eating, going to the bathroom, waking up, going to bed, driving to work, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, logging into the computer, etc.)
Choose your "Action" (the Habit you are trying to build) and set a working range (the minimum and maximum amount of work for the action). For example, reading between 5 and 30 minutes a day; working out between 10 and 90 minutes a day; studying a subject between 20 and 120 minutes a day, etc.
Choose a "Reward" that you will receive IMMEDIATELY after you have completed the "Action". The reward must be something very pleasant for you (food; watching a movie, resting, etc.)

3.6. Replacing a bad habit with a good one

It is an excellent idea to replace an existing bad habit with a good one. Thus, as they say, "we kill two birds with one stone." To do this, we need to know what the "Signal" is that makes us start the bad habit.

For example, if your "Cue" is the desire to eat chocolate because you are bored/depressed/stressed from work (university), then your "Action" (Habit) is to eat the chocolate, and your "Reward" is stress reduction. In this case, you can replace the "Action" with another action, for example, when you feel like eating chocolate, immediately eat a fruit or do something different, such as going for a walk/calling a friend/going to exercise or something else. This way, you replace the bad habit action with an action that can build a healthy habit and replace the bad one. Thus, by resisting the temptation and doing the new "Action," you will receive a "Reward" that translates into stress reduction and, at the same time, the feeling of satisfaction that you did not give in to the temptation.

When we realize we have a bad habit, we need to sit down and think about what the "Signal" is that pushes us to do it. And after we identify this signal, we need to feel when it appears and replace the "Action" that follows. This is not an easy process, and as I told you, you need to think carefully and analyze why and how the bad habit appears in order to get rid of it and replace it with a good one.

No matter how good the information in this article is, if you don't apply it, it won't make sense. So, after reading this article, try to apply the new knowledge.

4. Conclusion (Summary)

As you understand, we cannot rely on motivation, which is why we must strive to build habits that lead us to success. To do this, you can use the model we showed you: Signal –> Action –> Reward

Initially, choose just one habit to build, not several big ones at the same time, as that is a recipe for failure!

Try to replace bad habits with good ones. To do this, identify the "Signal" that makes you start the bad habit, and every time you receive this signal, take another "Action" to build a new, better habit and get rid of the bad one.

Building habits is a slow and difficult process, but we guarantee that when you start on the path of building healthy habits, you will achieve things you never even imagined you could do.

In the next article, we will share with you the most important habits you need to build to lose weight in the best and most effective way, so stay tuned to our blog.

We sincerely hope that this free reading has been helpful to you and that it will help you achieve not only your fitness goals in 2020 but also those in any other aspect, as habits are the key to long-term change and development. We would be pleased if you shared the article on your social networks and became part of our rapidly growing brand!

Source:
1. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
2. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jobe/2015/763680/

3 habits for losing excess weight

{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@id":"\/en\/blogs\/news\/%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8-%D0%B7%D0%B0-%D0%B4%D1%8A%D0%BB%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D0%B8-%D1%83%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B9%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%B2-%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%85#article","@type":"Article","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/geneziswear.ro\/en\/blogs\/news\/%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B8-%D0%B7%D0%B0-%D0%B4%D1%8A%D0%BB%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D0%B8-%D1%83%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B9%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%B2-%D1%83%D1%81%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%85"},"articleBody":"At the beginning of each year, everyone is motivated to make a change in their life and sets their goals for that year – to lose weight, to start exercising, to quit smoking, to reduce spending and save more money, to spend more time with loved ones, etc.\nThe problem is that most people, by the end of the year, fail to achieve many of these goals because somewhere along the way they have failed and returned to their old habits. Then, at the beginning of the next year, they set the same goals again, the cycle repeats, and thus for years people spin in a “vicious” circle from which they don’t know how to escape. Does that sound familiar? Maybe it’s you, a family member, or a close friend? If YES, don’t stop reading!\n\n1. Why shouldn’t we rely on motivation?\n\nMost of the time, people rely on motivation to start something. For example, to eat healthy and exercise regularly. The problem is that motivation is not always present when we need it, and in the long run, if we rely on it, we will fail.“Motivation is what gets us started, but habit is what keeps us going.”, you’ve heard that, right? – Then let me explain how to build a habit.\n2. What are habits?\nHabits are automated actions or behaviors acquired through frequent repetition of the same actions or behaviors.\nOnce created, a habit is hard to change. That is why we must strive to build healthy habits that lead us on the path to achieving our goal. Building a habit is a slow and difficult process, which, according to studies, takes on average about 66 days. Depending on the person and the difficulty of the habit, the formation time can vary between 18 and 254 days. One important thing to remember before you start reading the lines below is to try to build only one habit at a time, not several simultaneously. This way, the chances of success are much higher.\n3. How to build habits? (The structure of the habit)\n3.1. Introduction\nEvery habit starts with a psychological pattern called the “habit loop.”This circuit looks like this: Signal (Trigger) –\u003e Action –\u003e Reward\n\nSignal (Trigger) – the signal reminds us that we need to start the HABIT (Action). It can be a place, a specific time, a sound, or something else.\nAction – this is the habit we are trying to build or that we have already built (brushing teeth, smoking, eating sweets, etc.)\nReward – it is something we reward ourselves with after we have completed the “Action”. It is different for each person (tasty food, watching a movie, playing video games, going out with friends, etc.)\n\nHere are some examples of habits:\n\nYou receive a notification from Facebook (Signal), you open the notification (Action), you see it (Reward).\n\nYou are stressed (Signal), you smoke a cigarette (Action), you become calmer (Reward).\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n3.2. Signal (Trigger)\nThe signal must be something that happens absolutely every day. Here are some examples – eating, waking up, going to bed, driving to work, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, logging into the computer, and other activities that appear daily in your routine. You do these things every day, so they are a good choice for the \"Signal.\" The chosen signal must allow you to start the Action (Habit) easily and quickly. For example, if you have chosen to build the habit (Action) of learning Spanish for 20-30 minutes every day, it would not be a good idea to choose \"Arriving at work\" as the Signal (because you probably won't be able to study there). Here is a good example – let's say you have chosen to develop a habit related to training. It would be an excellent idea to sign up for a gym that is on your way back from school or work. That way you will notice your \"Signal\" (that is, seeing the gym) and when you see it, you will be just a few minutes away from starting the workout. Another important thing is to choose only one \"Signal\" so that your brain associates this signal only with the habit you are trying to build.\n3.3. Action\nA big mistake most people make is setting expectations too high for the habit they want to build. For example, they aim to train for an hour and a half, 5-6 days a week, read daily for 30-60 minutes, etc. If you expect to perform that well right from the start of building the habit, you will most likely face great difficulties and it is very likely you will fail. After a few days or maybe weeks, a day will come when you have low willpower levels (maybe because you are sick, tired, etc.). Whatever the reason, these days are inevitable because each of us has bad days. A very important thing to remember is that if your habit is still new, it will require much more willpower to follow it and less and less willpower as the days you practice it pass.\nLet's take the example that you are very tired (you have low willpower levels), you come back from school and see the gym, which is your \"Signal\" and it tells you that you have to train for an hour and a half. However, due to low willpower levels, your brain will do everything possible to convince you not to train. Therefore, you go back home and watch a favorite movie while eating something sweet. After doing this and realizing it, you start telling yourself that you are a failure and that you will never miss a workout again, but this happens a few times and you return to the starting point.\nSo what can we do? - Usually, when we want to build a useful habit and have decided to start tomorrow, we are very motivated and set very high goals, which condemn us to failure within a certain period. Therefore, a better idea is to set ourselves a \"Working Range\", which includes the minimum and maximum work we can do to build the habit - in our case, this can be from a minimum of 10 minutes of training to a maximum of 90 minutes of training. Someone who goes to train daily for 10 minutes a day will build a habit of exercising regularly faster than someone who trains half of their days for 1-2 or even 3 hours a day.\nTHIS IS THE CASE BECAUSE THE ONLY THING THAT WILL LEAD YOU TO BUILDING THE HABIT IS PERSISTENCE!\nHere is another example – let's say the habit you are trying to build is to read daily, and instead of setting a goal to read 30 minutes every day, you set a goal to read between 5 and 30 minutes. Thus, when you have low willpower levels, you will read for less time, but you will still be consistent and will not interrupt the habit-building process. Of course, it is recommended to try to do your habit more often towards the upper limit of the \"Working Range\" you set for yourself, to benefit from the advantages of the healthy habit you are trying to build, but in this case, this can be done gradually or on the principle of self-regulation – when you feel good and more motivated, you stick to the upper limit of the \"Working Range,\" and when you feel tired and have little desire to act, you simply do the action for a shorter time, but DO NOT skip it!\n3.4. Reward\nThere are 2 important requirements after which we can choose what our reward will be.\n\nIt must come immediately after completing the \"Action.\" If you tell yourself that your reward is a better appearance after 6 months of training, this is a weak \"Reward\" because your brain will not associate this reward with your \"Action\" since the reward is too far in the future. A good example of a \"Reward\" is to immediately make yourself a very tasty and healthy meal after training or watch your favorite series, go out with friends, etc. And because the \"Reward\" comes immediately after the \"Action,\" your brain more easily links the \"Action\" (in this case – training) to the \"Reward\" (in this case – tasty food, watching the series, going out with friends).\n\nThe reward must be PLEASANT.For example, good rewards are – rest, games, tasty food, sex, going out with friends, etc. The more pleasant your reward is, the easier it will be to follow your habit. If the habit you are trying to build is to take between 5 and 10,000 steps a day, for example, as a reward you could watch your favorite series.One of the main reasons we fail is that we do not find the habit we want to build enjoyable. This can be changed by choosing the right reward.A 2014 study at Duke University shows that we not only perform better when we enjoy the task we are doing, but we also get less tired.\n\n\n3.5. Summary:\n\nChoose a single signal that reminds you to do the action and that occurs daily in your routine. (Eating, going to the bathroom, waking up, going to bed, driving to work, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, logging into the computer, etc.)\nChoose your \"Action\" (the Habit you are trying to build) and set a working range (the minimum and maximum amount of work for the action). For example, reading between 5 and 30 minutes a day; working out between 10 and 90 minutes a day; studying a subject between 20 and 120 minutes a day, etc.\nChoose a \"Reward\" that you will receive IMMEDIATELY after you have completed the \"Action\". The reward must be something very pleasant for you (food; watching a movie, resting, etc.)\n\n3.6. Replacing a bad habit with a good one\nIt is an excellent idea to replace an existing bad habit with a good one. Thus, as they say, \"we kill two birds with one stone.\" To do this, we need to know what the \"Signal\" is that makes us start the bad habit.\nFor example, if your \"Cue\" is the desire to eat chocolate because you are bored\/depressed\/stressed from work (university), then your \"Action\" (Habit) is to eat the chocolate, and your \"Reward\" is stress reduction. In this case, you can replace the \"Action\" with another action, for example, when you feel like eating chocolate, immediately eat a fruit or do something different, such as going for a walk\/calling a friend\/going to exercise or something else. This way, you replace the bad habit action with an action that can build a healthy habit and replace the bad one. Thus, by resisting the temptation and doing the new \"Action,\" you will receive a \"Reward\" that translates into stress reduction and, at the same time, the feeling of satisfaction that you did not give in to the temptation.\nWhen we realize we have a bad habit, we need to sit down and think about what the \"Signal\" is that pushes us to do it. And after we identify this signal, we need to feel when it appears and replace the \"Action\" that follows. This is not an easy process, and as I told you, you need to think carefully and analyze why and how the bad habit appears in order to get rid of it and replace it with a good one.\nNo matter how good the information in this article is, if you don't apply it, it won't make sense. So, after reading this article, try to apply the new knowledge.\n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n4. Conclusion (Summary)\nAs you understand, we cannot rely on motivation, which is why we must strive to build habits that lead us to success. To do this, you can use the model we showed you: Signal –\u003e Action –\u003e Reward\nInitially, choose just one habit to build, not several big ones at the same time, as that is a recipe for failure!\nTry to replace bad habits with good ones. To do this, identify the \"Signal\" that makes you start the bad habit, and every time you receive this signal, take another \"Action\" to build a new, better habit and get rid of the bad one.\nBuilding habits is a slow and difficult process, but we guarantee that when you start on the path of building healthy habits, you will achieve things you never even imagined you could do.\nIn the next article, we will share with you the most important habits you need to build to lose weight in the best and most effective way, so stay tuned to our blog.\nWe sincerely hope that this free reading has been helpful to you and that it will help you achieve not only your fitness goals in 2020 but also those in any other aspect, as habits are the key to long-term change and development. We would be pleased if you shared the article on your social networks and became part of our rapidly growing brand!\nSource:1. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg2. https:\/\/www.hindawi.com\/journals\/jobe\/2015\/763680\/\n ","headline":"Habits for long-term and sustainable success","description":"At the beginning of each year, everyone is motivated to make a change in their life and sets their goals for that year – to lose weight, to start exercising, to quit smoking, to reduce expenses and save more money, to spend more time with loved ones, etc.","image":"https:\/\/geneziswear.ro\/cdn\/shop\/articles\/thumbnail-navici_9cdce0b8-95bb-45fa-b721-3d14631b473a.webp?v=1749545170\u0026width=1920","datePublished":"2025-06-04T14:11:15+03:00","dateModified":"2025-06-04T14:11:15+03:00","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Radostin Kuzmanov"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Genezis Romania"}}