If you are like most people, there is a gap 

between the person you are and the person you  

wish to be. There are little things you think you 

should do and big things you ought to achieve.

From working out regularly, eating healthily, 

learning a language, working on your novel,  

reading more or simply actually doing 

your hobby instead of browsing reddit.

But it sometimes seems that to achieve 

your goals, you have to become a different  

person. Someone who is consistent, puts in 

more effort, has discipline and willpower.  

Maybe you have tried your hardest to be like 

that. And it worked! For a while. Until you  

find yourself slipping back into your old 

ways. In the end, you always seem to fail.  

And with every failed attempt, you become more 

and more frustrated and annoyed with yourself.

If you believe “success and hustle” 

internet, it is all your own fault:  

if you don't succeed, you just didn’t want it 

enough and the failure is all you. But change  

is actually hard. And as with most things in 

life, understanding why makes things easier.

The Jungle

Imagine your brain as a lush and 

dense jungle. Moving through it,  

say to make a decision to do something, 

is like moving through an *actual* jungle:  

It is hard and it costs energy. 

Your brain hates expending energy,  

so it came up with a trick: All your actions and 

behaviors leave paths in the jungle of your brain.

As you start doing something, you trample down 

some plants and make rough, improvised trails  

through the undergrowth. The more often you do 

the thing, the more pronounced the trail becomes.  

Over time it turns into a path that is 

easier to tread, so you take it more often  
and it turns into a street. As you repeat 
doing the thing, over and over for years,  

the street turns into a highway. Traversing it 

becomes effortless, familiar and comfortable.

The more pronounced your brain highways, 

the more you get used to their comfort.  

So we continue to use them, which means 

we tend to do what we have always done.  

This is why change is hard, especially as an adult  

when your jungle is criss-crossed by 

lots of established streets and highways.

To understand how those highways are built 

we need to distinguish between two things:  

Routines and habits.

The Things You Do: Routines and Habits

A routine is a sequence of actions that you carry 

out the same way every time because they’ve worked  

out well for you. For example, you get the 

same ingredients for your favorite dish and  

cook them in a certain order, because you like 

the taste of the result. Or before going to bed  

you set an alarm at 6:30 because 

this is when you want to get up.

Imagine routines executed by a wise planner. It is 

slow and analytical, responsible for strategizing  

and mental calculations. The planner is 

aware of the future and carefully considers  

what kind of result you want. Based on that, it 

chooses actions to achieve specific outcomes,  

even if they are uncomfortable, like 

taking a shower after getting up.

Routines can eventually turn into 

habits, which feel much easier  

because they are basically a sequence of 

actions carried out without thinking about them.  

You have done them so often before that 

your brain considers them rewarding  

and a great response to a situation. So a 

habit can feel like you’re on autopilot.  
You don’t have to convince yourself to do 
something that’s a habit - you just do it.

The important thing about habits is 

that they are set in motion by triggers,  

context cues that can be single 

things or entire situations,  

that give your brain the signal 

to start the behavior or action.

You already have a lot of triggers in 

your life: like when you see your phone,  

you almost always unlock the screen. Or you reach 

for the seat belt when you sit in a car. Or when  

you buy your coffee before work, you also get a 

cookie, even though you aren’t actually hungry.

Habits are executed by an impulsive toddler. 

It responds to your immediate desires, based  

on what is around you. Without considering 

any longer-term goals. For the toddler,  

the future doesn’t exist and it hates hard work. 

So when it notices a trigger, it steers you to  

take this easy road inside your brain that leads 

to a familiar rewarding result. If you get coffee,  

the toddler also wants the cookie, just 

because that’s what you do every morning.

This rewarding feeling is also how most of 

your bad habits started: chocolate is tasty,  

browsing reddit is occasionally 

mildly entertaining.  

This is why you repeat these actions, 

even if they are bad for you.  

Rewarding feelings associated with an action 

demand to be repeated and so a bad habit is born.

While the toddler sounds like 

a built-in sabotage mechanism,  

it is as important as the wise planner and 

actually they work together most of the time!

You need your wise planner for thinking big 

thoughts and parallel parking and doing your  

taxes. But letting your wise planner do everything 

would cost too much energy. Outsourcing mundane  

and repetitive tasks to habits, managed by 

the toddler, allows your brain to easily  

manage your daily life, while dealing with more 

complex mental challenges at the same time.

So if we want to change and introduce 

a new behavior into our lives,  

we can actually use these energy 

saving mechanisms to make it easier.

We will focus on small things, not big ones.  

Improving your life a little is 

so much better than aiming high  

and changing nothing. Especially because small 

changes can do a lot over months and years.

How To Build a Habit

If you want to make change easier, 

the best way may not be to force  

it with willpower but to convince your 

brain that it’s not that big of a deal.  

By creating new routines and then turning 

them into habits. You want your wise planner  

to construct that first trail and then use your 

toddler to help initiate the action effortlessly.

Let us say, you want to work out 

to be fitter, a very common goal.  

The first thing to do is to break down this 

pretty vague goal into clear, separate actions,  

because the idea is to make the action 

itself as easy a threshold as possible:  

so small it is manageable and so specific 

that you don’t have to think about it a lot.

For example, a tangible, 

controllable action might be  

“doing ten squats” every morning. So you 

can start by trying to create a routine  

but already include clear triggers 

that the toddler can pick up later on.

Remember, a trigger is nothing more than a 

signal that you always associate with the action.  
They can be visual pointers like seeing 
a particular object, like your training  

outfit. Or a certain time of day, or a designated 

place like a nearby park – or even better, all of  

these things combined. The important thing is that 

you always start doing your action in a specific  

context. This trigger is the start button that 

will eventually set off the action automatically.

So to establish a home workout habit with ten 

squats to begin with, you could make sure to  

always do them with your exercise gear on, at the 

same place and time, like in your living room at  

8am. Once you have your trigger and action, 

all you need to do is repeat them regularly,  

ideally every day. If you keep going, they 

will change from a routine to a habit,  

from a trail to a highway. Don’t get this wrong, 

the squats will still take you energy to do – but  

the decision to do them will feel much less like 

a chore and more like a regular part of your day.

While this is simple, it is not easy.

Many things you want to turn into habits don’t 

offer as much instant gratification as wasting  

time on reddit. To make your new action easier 

to repeat and more likely to be picked up by  

the toddler, try to make it pleasurable. 

Not necessarily by rewarding yourself  

after you did it, but by making the action 

or behavior itself more enjoyable. Like only  

listening to your favorite podcast while 

working out, or chipping away at your taxes  

while you wait for civilization to load the next 

round. You need to figure out what works for you.

In principle, that's it.

Frustratingly simple, like most things you can 

do to make your life better. How long it takes  

for your toddler to take over and establish a 

habit varies widely. It depends on the behavior  
you are trying to get used to, what kind of person 
you are, your stress levels and many more things.  

It takes anything between 15 and 250 

days until a new habit is kicked off  

automatically by its trigger. You won't 

know how long it will take for you.

Starting is the easy part, 

especially in the first week or two.  

Continuing to do it every day is the hard 

part. But it does get easier as you keep going.

There are no silver bullets for 

change. But the science of habits  

is a reminder that it is possible, 

no matter how old or young you are.  

Even if you only end up doing a little more good 

stuff or a few new things, that’s still a success.  

Being a little bit more healthy or knowledgable 

is a million times better than being unhappy about  

a thing and changing nothing. In the end, 

change is a direction, not a destination.

So now that we hopefully gave you a bit 

of insight and motivation, this is the  

moment to sell you a thing! But please know, you 

do not need to buy anything to work on yourself.

Having said that, we struggle with 

change as much as anyone else,  

so we created our own habit journal, as much for 

ourselves as for you. Before we printed anything,  

we tested it on ourselves and got 

feedback from the Kurzgesagt team.

The idea is for you to track your habit 

progress for your desired behavior.  

There is a tutorial part which guides you through 

the hardest part of the process step by step.  

You’ll get helpful pointers, reflect on your 

progress and how you could make things easier for  

yourself. Once you get through the tutorial part 

the habit journaling starts, regularly interwoven  

by examples, science Breaks and reflections that 

will hopefully keep the journey interesting.
Like our Gratitude Journal it is cloth-bound, 
with an embossed hardcover and printed on  

high-quality paper. Nice to the touch and 

with lots of beautiful illustrations this  

book is compangion on your personal change 

journey, however small or big it may be.

Getting things from our shop is 

the best way to support Kurzgesagt  

and what we try to do here on the 

channel. Thank you for watching.