Understanding the chemistry of Habit

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What is your belief in how good health, wealth, and abundance are gained?

I am a Christian and I believe in my religion 100% and I believe that there is Power attached to the religion. However, before anyone can be fixed, you need to fix your habit first. Your habit affects everything about you, including your finance. And knowing the chemistry to build better habits is important.

There is an approach in chemistry called activation energy. Activation energy is simply the minimum amount of energy needed to trigger atoms to react to a chemical transformation. Let’s say you want to drive a bolt into a nut and you place the screwdriver gently into the bolt. The bolt will not move because you did not apply the minimum needed energy to drive it. But if you apply the required energy to drive in the bolt, then you will succeed.

Well, that is the activation energy in a chemical reaction, so how can we apply this in our day-to-day life and build better habits. In chemistry, the difficult it is for a chemical reaction to occur, the higher the activation energy. Think about how you practice some of your attitude.

Imagine you want to burn some belly fat and you are doing 2 sit up a day. The activation energy to stick the habit is simple, but if you consider 50 push up a day, you need bigger activation energy. Then you need more motivation and energy to stick to it every day. I used to jump rope 3,000 times a day. I was consistent with it for many weeks, but I lost the energy and motivation at a point. My goal is to improve my body and some minor issues with my skin. The goal made me think more about the outcome than steadily making lifestyle improvements.

The issue is big goals need big activation energies. At first, I could get the motivation and energy needed to achieve 3,000 rope jumps a day, but later the energy fades away and I could not keep up with the 3,000 a day.

Key number one

The bigger the activation energy you need for your habit, the harder it is for you to be consistent with it for a long time. Smaller habits need little activation energy and it is easy to keep up with for a long time. Instead of 3,000 times a day, if I had started with 500, I would be more consistent for a long time.

Find the right Catalyst

We all search for ways and things that will make our success and result easier. In chemistry, a catalyst is the substance the speed up the chemical reaction by lowering the activation energy.

The first catalyst to habit is our environment. If you want to reduce your alcohol intake, reduce them from your reach. Instead of buying beers in your fridge, replace them with smoothies. Recently, I thought of being more creative while in my home for the holidays. I got a comfortable chair, take some gadgets that take my time away from my home and I have been more productive and I stick to my Todos. So, the catalyst here is the chair that I changed and the gadgets I removed from my home.

Whenever I spend the night in one of my buddies’ home, I will definitely use the next morning for intensive exercise because he is a gym instructor.

Key number two

Your environment is the catalyst to reduce the amount of energy needed to keep to your good habits.

The centre of human habits.

In the process of chemical reaction, there used to be a centre reaction before the last reaction. A chemical combination that starts from white and supposed to end in black can move to brown before black. Brown is the centre of the reaction. So, this applies to human habits as well.

A few months ago, I went to a gym to enquire, and I told the attendant that I will come the next day to pay. Well, I never went back because I was busy with my schedule. But if I had paid the day I went, I might consider my money and start going to the gym even if it is a day a week. So I had the intention, but I did nothing about the centre that will drive me to the gym. There are more processes in the centre, but that is the first step. So, you should know your sticking point for the good habits you are trying to build and follow the steps.

Changing or building a good habit is hard, but knowing the chemistry that can make them easy is good. There are habits I am trying to change and the solution I could find is replacing them. The results we get in every aspect are linked with our habits and that is why we must work on them.

My name is @tykee (Balogun Michael), a software developer/content writer and the founder of Meshboc Limited. I use my content to share my opinions on tech, lifestyle, and finance.

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