Chapter 15: Building Days You Want to Live In

A Different First Hour

A year has passed since Valentina, whom we met in the first chapter, drove to her old office on autopilot. That evening, she wrote down her day and circled one habit she wanted to change: checking work emails on her phone in bed as soon as she woke up. It set an anxious tone for every day, before she had even got up.

Valentina used many of the ideas in this book. She watched the habit for a week and found its cues: the alarm, the phone on the bedside table, the half-asleep feeling. She noticed the reward: a small sense of control and preparation, mixed with a lot of worry. She moved her phone charger to the kitchen and bought a simple alarm clock. She made an if-then plan: "If my alarm goes off, then I will open the curtains and stand by the window for one minute." She expected it to take months, and she did not give up when she slipped, which she did, especially in stressful weeks.

Now, Valentina's first hour is different. She wakes to the alarm clock, opens the curtains and looks out at the street for a minute, watching the light. She makes her coffee, sits at the kitchen table and drinks it slowly. Only then, after breakfast, does she pick up her phone and check her emails. The emails are the same as before. But she meets them calm and awake, instead of anxious and half asleep. Her days begin differently, and she feels that they go differently too.

Valentina did not transform her life overnight. She changed one habit, then another, using what she had learned about how her brain works. Over the year, she also started walking part of the way to work, began eating lunch away from her desk with colleagues and built a short evening routine that helped her sleep. None of these changes was dramatic. Together, they made her days feel more like her own.

This final chapter brings together the ideas of this book. It looks at how to combine them into days that you actually want to live in, not perfect days, but days shaped more by your choices and less by habits you never chose.

What We Have Learned About the Brain and Habits

Throughout this book, we have seen that much of daily life runs on habits: learned links between situations and responses that run with little conscious thought. Brain science suggests that habits rely heavily on deep brain structures called the basal ganglia, while deliberate, goal-directed behaviour relies more on the prefrontal cortex. Habits save our limited attention, which is why the brain relies on them so much. But they can also keep us doing things we no longer want to do.

We have seen that habits are triggered by cues, such as places, times, preceding actions, people and feelings, which often pass beneath our awareness. Habits are strengthened by rewards, especially immediate ones, and dopamine plays a role in learning which cues predict rewards and in creating the wanting that pulls us toward them. Unpredictable rewards are especially powerful. Once a habit is strong, it may continue even when its reward has faded.

We have seen that habits take time to form, usually much longer than the popular twenty-one days, with great variation between people and behaviours, and that missing an occasional day does not seriously harm the process. Willpower is not as reliable a tool as many believe; people who manage their habits well may rely more on arranging their surroundings and building helpful routines than on resisting temptation in the moment. Designing our environment, making helpful behaviours easy and unhelpful ones harder, can shift habits with little effort. If-then plans can link behaviours to specific situations in advance, and are supported by a large body of research.

We have seen that fighting habits head-on often backfires, and that replacing them with new responses to the same cues tends to work better. Sleep and stress strongly affect our habits, with tiredness and stress pushing us toward whatever habits we already have. The famous marshmallow research shows that waiting depends on strategies, situations and trust, not only on a fixed trait. Starting small helps habits survive the early weeks. The people around us shape our habits, and we shape theirs. Lapses are normal, and the way we respond to them matters. And the brain remains able to change at every age, with life transitions offering windows for new habits.

These ideas are not a set of rules. They are tools, based on what science has learned so far, with honest notes about where the evidence is strong and where it is still developing. Different tools will suit different people, habits and situations. The art lies in choosing the tools that fit your life, and in using them with patience.

Choosing Which Habits Matter

One question remains, and it is perhaps the most important: which habits should we build or change? Science can tell us a great deal about how habits work. It cannot tell us which habits are right for each of us. That depends on what we value and what kind of life we want to live.

Many books about habits suggest focusing on habits that reflect who we want to be. The idea is that each repeated action is a kind of vote for a particular identity: "I am someone who reads", "I am someone who looks after my health", "I am someone who is kind to my family". This idea has some support in psychology, which has long studied how our behaviour and our sense of self influence each other. But the evidence for the strong claims sometimes made in popular books is limited, and it is wise to see it as a helpful way of thinking rather than a proven law.

A simpler approach is to start with what matters to you. Think about the things you value most: your health, your relationships, your work, your creativity, your community, your peace of mind. Then ask which of your current habits support these values and which work against them. The habits that work against what you value are good candidates for change. The habits that would support your values, but that you do not yet have, are good candidates for building.

It is also wise to be selective. Many people, when they learn about habits, want to change everything at once. But changing many habits at the same time can be overwhelming, because each new habit needs attention, repetition and patience in its early weeks. It is usually better to choose one or two habits at a time, build them until they are reasonably automatic and then move on to the next.

Some writers have suggested that certain habits, such as regular sleep or exercise, can have effects that spread to many other parts of life, making other habits easier. This idea is plausible, and it fits some of what we have seen, such as Abdi's experience in Chapter 9, where better sleep helped his other habits return. But the evidence for particular habits having special powers is mixed, and what matters most may vary from person to person. A practical approach is to notice which of your habits seem to support others, and to protect those especially.

Yusra and the Twelve Resolutions

Yusra is thirty-seven and works as a manager in a company that organizes conferences. Last January, after reading several books about habits, she made a list of twelve new habits she wanted to build: getting up at six, meditating, exercising, eating more vegetables, drinking more water, reading every day, writing in a journal, learning a language, calling her parents weekly, going to bed by ten, reducing screen time and keeping her flat tidy. She started all twelve on the first of January.

For the first week, Yusra managed most of them, with enormous effort. By the second week, she was exhausted. By the third week, she had dropped half of them. By February, she had dropped all twelve, and she felt worse than before, as if she had proved to herself that she could not change. "I knew so much about habits," she said, "and I still failed."

Yusra's mistake was not a lack of knowledge. It was trying to apply everything at once. Each new habit needed attention in its early weeks: noticing the cue, remembering the plan, pushing through the effort before it became automatic. Twelve habits at once required twelve times that attention, which no one has.

There was also a second problem. Several of Yusra's twelve habits competed with each other for the same time and energy. Getting up at six, meditating, exercising, journaling and studying a language all needed space in her mornings, and there was not enough morning for all of them. Each habit made the others harder. When she later built habits one at a time, she could see where each one fitted in her day, and which ones could share a cue without crowding each other out.

In March, Yusra started again, differently. She chose just one habit: going to bed by half past ten. She chose it because she noticed that when she slept well, everything else was easier. She designed her evening for it, moved her phone out of the bedroom and gave herself three months. When it had become reasonably automatic, she added a second habit: a short walk at lunchtime. Then a third: calling her parents on Sunday mornings.

By the end of the year, Yusra had built five of the twelve habits on her original list, and they felt natural and lasting. "One at a time works," she says. "Twelve at a time does not. I wish I had known that in January." Yusra's story shows that knowing how habits work is not enough. The knowledge needs to be applied patiently, one habit at a time, with room for each to grow.

Pieter and the Sunday Review

Pieter is fifty-two and works as an engineer for a company that maintains bridges. After reading about habits, he built several new routines over a year: a morning stretch, a packed lunch, a weekly call with his brother and an evening walk with his dog. He was pleased with his progress. But he noticed that, from time to time, habits slipped without his noticing, especially during busy periods at work.

Pieter decided to create a small habit that would look after his other habits: a weekly review. Every Sunday evening, he spent ten minutes with a notebook, asking himself three questions. Which of my habits went well this week? Which slipped, and why? Is there anything I want to adjust for next week? He kept the review short and simple, and he did it at the same time each week, with a cup of tea at the kitchen table.

The review helped Pieter notice slips early, before they became relapses. When he saw that his evening walk had slipped during a busy week, he made a plan for the following week: a shorter walk on busy days, and his usual walk on others. When he noticed that his packed lunch kept slipping on Mondays, he realized that he was too tired on Sunday evenings to prepare it, and moved the preparation to Sunday afternoon.

The review also helped Pieter notice his progress, which was encouraging. Looking back through his notebook after six months, he could see how his habits had grown and steadied over time. He also noticed which habits mattered most to him and which he could let go. "The review is the habit that keeps the other habits alive," he says. "Ten minutes a week. It is the best ten minutes I spend."

Pieter's story shows the value of stepping back regularly to look at our habits as a whole. Habits are automatic by nature, which means they can drift without our noticing. A short, regular review brings them back into view, so that we can adjust them deliberately. It combines the automatic system's efficiency with the deliberate system's judgment.

Amani and What Matters

Amani is twenty-four and works as a junior architect in a large firm. She is ambitious, and in her first year she built many habits around her career: staying late, checking emails constantly, working on weekends, attending every networking event. She was succeeding at work. But she felt increasingly unhappy, and she was not sure why.

A friend asked Amani what mattered most to her in life. Amani thought about it for a long time. She wrote a list: her family, her close friends, her health, painting, which she had loved since childhood, and doing good work as an architect. Then her friend asked which of her daily habits supported these things. Amani realized, with a shock, that almost all her habits supported only one item on the list: work. Her family, friends, health and painting had almost no place in her days.

Amani did not want to give up her ambition. But she decided to bring her habits more into line with all her values, not just one. She chose one habit for each value, starting small. For her family, a phone call with her mother every Wednesday evening. For her friends, dinner with a close friend every Friday. For her health, a walk at lunchtime. For painting, thirty minutes every Saturday morning, before anything else. For work, she kept her commitment to doing good work, but she stopped checking emails after eight in the evening and stopped working on Sundays.

Over several months, Amani's days changed. She was still a dedicated architect, and her work did not suffer. In fact, her manager noticed that she seemed more energetic and creative. But she also felt happier and more balanced. Her Saturday painting sessions, in particular, became a source of joy. "I had built a life of habits that served only my career," she says. "Now my habits serve all of me."

Amani also noticed that the change was not a loss for her work. Painting on Saturday mornings gave her ideas about colour and space that she brought back to her architectural designs. Dinners with her friend reminded her that there was a world beyond the office, which made her less anxious about every small setback at work. Her habits now supported each other, instead of all pulling in one direction.

Amani's story shows that the most important question about habits is not only how to build them, but which ones to build. The science of habits can help us change our behaviour. But our values must tell us which changes are worth making. Habits are the building blocks of our days, and our days, added together, are our lives. Choosing habits that reflect what matters most is one of the most important choices we can make.

Practical Steps: Building Your Days

The first step is to know what matters to you. Write a short list of the things you value most in life. Keep it simple: four to six items. These values will guide your choice of habits.

The second step is to look at your current habits in the light of your values. Which habits support what matters to you? Which work against it? Which values have no habits supporting them at all? This comparison will show you where change is most worthwhile.

The third step is to choose one habit at a time. Select one habit to build or change, ideally one that supports an important value and seems achievable. Use the tools from this book: understand its cues and rewards, design your environment, make an if-then plan, start small and expect it to take time.

The fourth step is to protect your foundations. Pay particular attention to sleep and to managing stress, because they affect all your other habits. If these foundations are weak, other habits will be harder to build and keep.

The fifth step is to review regularly. Like Pieter, set aside a short time each week to look at your habits: what went well, what slipped and what to adjust. This keeps your habits in view and lets you respond to slips before they grow.

The sixth step is to be patient and kind with yourself. Habit change is slow, uneven and full of lapses. This is normal for everyone. Treat yourself with the kindness you would show a friend who was trying to change, celebrate small successes and start again whenever you slip.

The seventh step is to enjoy the habits you already have. Not every part of life needs improving. Many of your existing habits are good ones, quietly serving you every day. Notice them, appreciate them and protect them. A life built on habits is not a project to be completed. It is something to be lived, adjusted gently over time and, most of all, enjoyed.

What This Book Cannot Do

It is honest, at the end of a book like this, to say what it cannot do. The science of habits is a young and developing field. Some of the ideas in this book are well established. Others are supported by some evidence but still debated. Some popular ideas, such as the twenty-one-day rule and the simple version of the marshmallow story, have turned out to be wrong or exaggerated. As research continues, some of what we now believe may change. It is wise to hold all of these ideas with an open mind.

This book also cannot change the circumstances of your life. Many people face real constraints, such as long working hours, caring responsibilities, financial pressures, health conditions and unsafe or unsupportive environments, which make building helpful habits much harder. These are not personal failings. Where possible, it may help to seek practical support from others, and to be gentle with yourself about what is possible within your circumstances.

If you are struggling with habits that harm your health, such as addictions or compulsive behaviours, or with difficulties such as persistent low mood, anxiety or sleep problems, please talk to a doctor or another qualified professional. If you want to make changes to your health habits, it is wise to seek advice about what is safe and suitable for you. If you ever feel that you might hurt yourself, or if you are in danger, contact a helpline or a medical facility right away, and in immediate danger call your local emergency number.

A Short Exercise: A Plan for the Next Three Months

This final exercise brings together the tools of this book into a simple plan for one habit over the next three months. It takes about thirty minutes.

At the top of a page, write your values: the four to six things that matter most to you. Below them, write one habit you would like to build or change that would support one of these values. Choose something achievable.

Then work through the tools from this book, writing a line or two for each. The cue: where, when and after what will this habit happen? The reward: what will make it satisfying in the moment? The environment: what will you change to make it easier, or to make the old habit harder? The if-then plan: "If..., then I will..." The small start: what is the smallest version you will do every time? The people: who could join you or support you? The foundations: what will you do to protect your sleep and manage stress? The lapse plan: what will you do and say to yourself when you slip?

Finally, write the date three months from now at the bottom of the page, and set a regular weekly time for a short review, like Pieter's. At each review, look at the page, notice how the habit is going and adjust the plan if needed. At the end of three months, decide whether to keep going, adjust or choose a new habit.

Valentina made a plan like this when she began changing her morning routine. Her value was "starting each day calm". Her cue was "the alarm clock". Her reward was "the light through the window and a slow coffee". Her environment change was "phone charger in the kitchen". Her small start was "one minute at the window". Her support was "telling my partner, who now opens the curtains if I forget". Her lapse plan was "If I check emails in bed, I will not give up. I will move the phone back to the kitchen that evening." Three months later, she wrote at the bottom of the page: "It worked. Next: walking part of the way to work."

Chapter Summary

This book has explored what brain science and psychology suggest about habits: that much of daily life runs on them; that they are triggered by cues and strengthened by rewards; that they take time to form, usually much longer than twenty-one days; that willpower is less reliable than well-designed surroundings and if-then plans; that replacing habits works better than fighting them; that sleep and stress shape all our habits; that self-control depends on strategies and trust; that small starts, supportive people and kind responses to lapses help; and that the brain can change at every age. Some of these ideas are well established, others are still debated, and a few popular ideas have turned out to be myths.

Valentina's new first hour, Yusra's twelve resolutions reduced to one at a time, Pieter's Sunday review and Amani's habits brought into line with her values all show that the science of habits is most useful when it is applied patiently, one habit at a time, guided by what matters most. This book cannot change difficult circumstances, but it can offer tools for shaping ordinary days.

Throughout this book, we have met many people building and changing habits: drivers and cleaners, students and grandparents, managers and children, parents and pharmacists. None of them became perfect. All of them, in small and steady ways, made their days a little more their own. Your brain is wired for habits. That means it is also wired for change, one cue, one small step and one patient repetition at a time.