What is the difference between habits and routines

Converting a routine into a habit is not an automatic process and it often requires patience and proper techniques. The best chance of turning a routine into a habit is by breaking it into small, more manageable portions that can be individually addressed over a period of time.

An important distinction exists between routines and rituals. A routine is simply an action that needs to be done, while a ritual usually has the connotation of being done with a sense of purpose or meaningfulness.

By applying meaningfulness to and being mindful during a routine, it can become a ritual. The ritual makes the routine more of a subjective experience rather than simply a task to be completed. For example, you might be trying to establish a routine of eating healthy. Focus on the taste and texture of the food, being conscious of how you chew and taking your time. Be aware of how your body moves and the sensations created by the ingested foods.

Research has actually shown that practicing more mindful eating can improve the flavor of what you are eating. Even something as simple as making the bed can become a ritual.

As you smooth the sheets, you can try to center your thoughts and concentrate on how your muscles move and how the sheets feel in your fingers. Contemplate how having a made bed will help you feel more organized and clean. By tying a routine in with a sense of purpose, it can become a ritual that can help a task be more enjoyable.

According to the American Journal of Psychology, a habit is generally considered to be a fixed way of thinking or feeling that results from repeated experience. The more repetition involved, the greater likelihood of a habit becoming ingrained in us. Because of this, habits, once formed, can be very difficult to shake off. Studies have shown that people who routinely perform the same action in the same way, every single time, such as putting on their shoes in the morning with the left foot first and then the right foot, will often have a little difficulty if put in a different environment.

Since habits are so firmly connected to situational cues, a change in the trigger can result in a modification of the habit.

For example, a person on vacation who always puts shoes on starting with the left foot might accidentally put his or her shoes on in a different order than usual without noticing it.

Habits are often fixed responses, so while the urge to complete them may still remain, there might be a slightly modified execution since the stimulus feels different.

For this reason, many experts say that vacation is one of the best times to try to break a habit. All the usual cues and familiar stimuli that would prompt a behavioral response are often absent on vacation. Hopefully, you will have repeated the habit enough while on vacation to carry over to when you return home.

Have you ever seen someone start fidgeting when embarrassed? Or maybe someone who begins to bite their nails when they are nervous? These are unconscious habits that may not be necessarily desirable by the person committing them. It may be more hygienic and professional to refrain from biting your nails, but the compulsion occurs when you are nervous whether you want it to or not.

Anyone who has ever smoked cigarettes can be very familiar with the negative influence of a habit. Especially when trying to cease smoking, a smoker might find it very difficult to ignore the compulsion to light up a cigarette.

Perhaps someone has the habit of eating junk food late at night, such as eating an entire bowl of chips and salsa every evening after his wife is asleep. While it would likely be healthier to not eat this every night, there is still a sense of compulsion and an unconscious desire to repeatedly do it. Habits, alternatively, give us some sort of subconscious satisfaction and we automatically perform them, even if it is actually bad for us.

A lot of times, habits become so ingrained that it is difficult to even acknowledge a habit taking place. Smokers trying to quit smoking definitely know the challenge of breaking a bad habit. If you have repeatedly enjoyed a cigarette every day at a certain time, such as after a meal or right before going to bed, it can be very unsettling to suddenly not have a cigarette at these times.

True to the definition of a habit, it feels uncomfortable and frustrating to not be able to perform the action. This allows a person to still fulfill the desire to partake in a habit, but it eliminates the unhealthy, undesired component. Often, to break a habit requires a conscious dedication. Since habits are impulses that are often automatic, a person needs to first recognize the habit in order not to simply click into autopilot.

Sometimes, this can be very difficult to execute. Many strategies for breaking habits involve creating substitute habits or avoiding the scenarios that cue the habit. By forcing ourselves not to repeat a habit, it may eventually fade and no longer be an instinctual response. Since habits come about naturally through instinctive impulses generated in response to a particular stimulus, they generally feel good to perform.

The satisfaction of accomplishing a habit may not be readily apparent to us. Deep down, somewhere in our subconscious, we are performing the repeated behavior because it brings about some sort of satisfaction or relief. As such, when something prevents us from performing a habit, it often feels bad. If unable to brush our teeth before bed, we might lie down feeling acutely aware of how our mouth feels fuzzy with plaque and have a general discomfort about the idea.

It may result in us seeking out a way to brush our teeth or perform a substitute action, such as gargling mouthwash, in order to experience some semblance of relief. In contrast, routines usually do not feel pleasurable to execute on their own. They often require a motivated effort to perform.

For example, folding your laundry may seem tedious and you try to postpone it as long as possible. You may run the dryer several times to remove the wrinkles because you keep hesitating to remove the clothes and fold them. Many times, if you break down and analyze a routine, you can determine that it is actually a series of stacked habits. While the overall routine may be daunting and take effort to execute, there may be small, automatic efforts within it. Sometimes, adjusting these habits is an easier way of modifying a routine to make it less burdensome.

A good example is a particular or unique family tradition or singing a certain song on a special day etc. An example at work might be celebrating each new joiner to the team with a personalised welcome. The start point for many of these regular team activities is often to start a routine.

This typically requires conscious effort and determination. Just as it takes effort to get to the gym every week. It takes effort to set and review team goals. These are not yet instinctive behaviours, or habits. They may not be invested with the same level of meaning as a ritual.

But this can happen later. The main difference between habits and routines is how aware and intentional you are. A habit usually manifests itself as an automatic urge to do something, often triggered by a particular cue. Habits happen with little or no conscious thought, whereas routines require a higher degree of intention and effort. With enough time and the right techniques, routines can turn into habits, but it is not an automatic process. The habit loop in the Power of Habit is summarised like this:.

Habits are automatically triggered by cues. The way to reinforce a habit is with some kind of reward. This creates a reinforcing cycle. One approach - habit stacking - involves anchoring a new habit to an existing one. The difference between a routine and a ritual is the level of meaning behind the action.

Routines can feel more mindless and, well, routine. Unfortunately, there are plenty of folks out there peddling quick-fix programs, but this is why they generally lead to disappointment. In reality, while the average habit-formation time was 66 days, Lally found that it can take anywhere from 18 to days to get things cemented-in.

Habits take time — and how much is going to depend on a lot of things that are unique to your circumstances. That said, there is a way to deliberately approach this process that will help ensure that you succeed in developing the type of habits that will create positive change in your life. You begin by choosing a cue of some sort. When you complete that cue task, it will notify your brain to begin the activity you want to turn into a habit.

For example, I use going to the bathroom as the cue to my morning routine. When I wake up, I generally have to go to the bathroom. It can be as simple as that — turning on music in the morning might be a cue to begin a morning sit practice, or drinking a glass of water and placing the empty glass next to your journal might be the cue to initiate your writing habit.

Second, you must continually and consistently execute the given set of tasks aka your routine over time. One of the easiest ways to achieve this consistency is by grouping together a small, but actionable set of tasks — a process I call chunking.

For example, one of my morning chunks is to: wake up, make coffee, pee, meditate for 5 minutes, and write. The whole chunk takes about 15 minutes. Lastly, finish your habit loop with validation. That means that you should wrap up your chunk with something that keeps you coming back! Maybe reward yourself with the cup of coffee that you started brewing pre-meditation.

If so, start right now. She is the creator of the MAPS Mindfulness, Activation, Purpose, and Surrender philosophy and is in continual pursuit of helping her students find balance amid the chaos around and within them. Please log in again. The login page will open in a new tab.