Forming new habits is often seen as a huge commitment that only a few fortunate souls - blessed with a naturally high dosage of willpower - can ever accomplish. The rest of us can only content ourselves with silly attempts to change, only to default to our old ways.

    But the problem isn't really with forming new habits. It's our approach to forming new habits that makes life difficult.

    To make your life much easier, here are two simple ways you can use to form new habits that will help you get great results without really trying!

    Half Habits

    The most common approach to forming a new habit is to attempt to create it with a single leap from your old way to the new way, without any transition period. You smoke and you want to quit smoking. You drink coffee and you want to cut it out of your diet. You don't exercise and want to join the gym to exercise on a daily basis. To achieve your goals, you rely on commitment and willpower.

    But as you have experienced time and time again, your willpower will dwindle a few weeks down the road （if you survive that long） and drag your commitment down with it, leaving you with your old ways… if not worse!

    That's because to go from one way to a totally new way is unnatural. It comes as a shock to your mind, body and soul and they will fight fiercely to return to a way that is familiar to them.

    What's the solution, I hear you ask?

    Well, that's a good question, and I'm glad you asked it :）

    A solution I would recommend would be to go for half habits.

    What does that mean?

    Rather than trying to commit FULLY to a new habit, you simply take a step in its direction.

    For example, instead of immediately joining a gym in order to become healthy, if your body has almost forgotten what "physical activity" means, incorporate a mini-exercise routine at home. That way, you don't feel guilty that you're not going to the gym every day, and you're not taking something on that will be met with resistance. It's a small adjustment that you won't have difficulty keeping up.

    An advantage to half habits is that you accept that you need to go through a transition period from old habit to new habit. You accept this as something natural and not a failing on your part.

    Your focus then turns to the progress that you are making instead of the times you fall off the wagon!

    "Oh great! I exercised four times this week!" instead of "OH MY GOD! I haven't exercised for THREE days this week!"

    And with half habits, you can effectively take on a number of habits without feeling any pressure!

    I managed to cut down on coffee and soft drinks, started blogging almost daily, reduced the amount of food I eat, began waking up early in the morning and developed a range of other mini-habits that have popped up here and there without me making any serious attempt to form them. The last time I drank a soft drink I actually felt disgusted because I didn't enjoy the taste （my preference is moving towards drinking water）. I didn't force myself to stop drinking soft drinks. I simply said to myself: I would like to start drinking more water and removing soft drinks from my diet. And I went in that direction with the acceptance that I might be having a soft drink occasionally.

    Another great advantage to half habits is that some habits help reinforce each other!

    Cutting down on coffee helps you get more quality sleep, which helps make it easier to wake up early, which gives you more time to do quality work, etc.

    You transition towards new habits without feeling burdened by unrealistic commitments and can enjoy making progress in your life.

    And what's the other way you can form habits easily…？

    Timeless Habits

    One of the major obstacles we face in trying to adopt new habits into our lives is simply that we don't have the time to do so!

    If you want to start exercising, you need to fit exercise sessions into your schedule. But that involves some planning, and you might already have too many commitments that stop you from squeezing in exercise into your busy week.

    But that doesn't mean you cannot develop new and positive habits!

    Not having the time is no reason to remain stagnant. There are many small adjustments and changes we can do here and there that require no extra time whatsoever!

    Do you need any extra time to replace coffee with green tea, or soft drinks with water?

    Do you need any extra time to sprinkle your day with a few more smiles?

    There are SO many ways we can move forward in life without needing to make any hefty time commitments, and these changes will help us realize how easy it is to form new habits and will also lead us to enjoy the many benefits these habits can bring to our lives!

    Give these two ways a try, and find out how easy it is to form new habits and move your life forward!

    The Golden Nuggets From This Article

    To make the application of the lessons in this post easier to apply, here's a summary of the key points mentioned, split between Theory （the ideas you should bear in mind） and Practice （what you need to do to make use of what you just read）

    Theory

    * Forming new habits isn't hard, nor does it require a lot of willpower. The problem is with ourapproach to habit-formation

    * There are two simple ways to habit-formation that makes it easy to accomplish: 1） Half Habits 2） Timeless Habits

    * Half Habits: Rather than aim to form a new habit fully, aim to make progress in the directionof the new habit. You will gradually re-adjust, and the approach is much more natural than expecting to form a new habit with a single leap

    * Timeless Habits: There are many, many habits we can develop that require absolutely no time commitment. Replacing coffee with green tea, or soft drinks with water doesn't take any extra time to do but can bring about great benefits into our lives

    Practice

    * Half Habits: For all the habits you intend on adopting, instead of focusing on the destination （forming the new habit fully）, think of the next step you can take in the direction of these habits and make a slight adjustment to adopting these habits

    * Timeless Habits: Come up with ways you can make simple changes to what you eat, how you behave, etc. that can bring about positive results in your life, without needing to free up any time on your schedule to form these new habits

    形成新的习惯总是被视作巨大的义务去承担，只有少数幸运的人-以自己极其巨大的自制力来祈祷-可以成功实现。 我们其余的人只能满足于愚蠢的试图改变，最终只得以墨守陈规，延续我们以往的生活方式。

    实际上，问题不在于形成新的习惯。是我们对于形成新习惯的研究（approach,亦可看做尝试的意图）使得生活变得复杂化。

    要使你的生活简单化，这里有两个方法你可以试一下，它会使你得到很大的收获而不用真正去尝试。

    半个习惯

    最常见的形成新习惯的尝试是试图在你旧的生活方式中创造一个简单的跳跃到新的方式， 而缺少了一个过渡阶段。你吸烟而你想戒了；你喝咖啡而你想把它从食谱上去除；你从不锻炼但想去体育馆进行一个有基础的每日锻炼。你依靠承诺与毅力来实现你的目标（靠的住吗，你的意志有多坚定？）

    但当你反复的做锻炼时，你的意志力衰减了，在将来的某个时候（如果你活到了那时）也使得你的承诺随之衰弱，让你重新回归旧的生活方式…如果你觉得还过的去的话！

    那时因为从一种生活方式起步到另一种是不自然的。 它就如一道闪电般震惊了你的大脑，身体和心灵，它们会猛烈的反抗斗争去回到那对它们而言再熟悉不过的方式中。

    我听到你问道，什么是解决方法？

    嗯，这个问题问的好，我很高兴你问如此一个问题 大笑

    我提倡的一个方法是去寻找 半个习惯（half habits）.

    那是什么？

    与其试着去 全部的 委托一个新的习惯，你可以简单的按如下指导步骤实行。

    距离而言，与其马上办张体育馆的卡去锻炼来变得健康，如果你的身体已经几乎忘记了"体力活动"是什么，在家里里混入一些小的日常锻炼。那样的话，你不会因你没有每天去健身馆感到罪恶，并你不会考虑它会遇到阻力。只要一个小的调整你不会后继的困难。

    对于 半个习惯 的一个优势是你得承认你需要经历一个过渡期从旧习惯到新习惯。你接受它如一个自然而然的事物而非失败的一部分。

    你的焦点转向你正在做的事情进展中，而非你脱离时代的洪流！（Your focus then turns to the progress that you are making instead of the times you fall off the wagon!）翻译不一定准确

    "哦，太好了！我这周锻炼了4次"取代了"我的上帝！我这周还有3天没做锻炼！"

    于是，和 一半习惯， 你可以高效的采取了一些习惯而不感到任何压力！

    我设法减少和咖啡和软饮料，几乎每天写博客，减少我吃的食物，开始清晨更早起床，并且制定了一系列的小习惯（它们已经出现在生活中的各个地方）,而我没有去做很大的尝试去形成它们。最后一次我喝软饮料时，我并感觉恶心因为我不喜欢它的味道（我的偏好正偏向喝纯净水）.我没有强迫自己停止喝它，我只是对自己说：我想先喝更多的水，而非软饮料出现在我的食谱上。我从那个方向去接受，我可能偶尔喝一杯。

    另一个很大的优势就在于有些习惯有助于加强彼此！

    减少喝咖啡的次数可以帮助您获得更多高质量的睡眠，这有利于更容易早起，让你有更多的时间做有质量的工作，等等。

    你过渡到新的习惯，而不感到负担不现实的承诺，并可以享受在生活中取得进步。

    还要什么其他方式可以容易的形成新习惯？

    永恒的习惯

    对于我们面对试图适应新习惯进入我们的生活的一大阻碍是很简单的：我们没有时间去这样做！

    如果你想开始锻炼，您需要合适的锻炼阶段到您的日程安排。但是，这涉及到一些规划，而且您肯已经有太多使得你把锻炼挤入繁忙的一周的承诺。

    但这不意味着你可以停止开始新而积极向上的习惯！

    没有时间不是继续保持停滞迟钝的原因。有太多的小的调整和改变我们可以去做，而这一点儿也不需要诸如额外的时间！

    你需要额外的时间去把咖啡换成绿茶， 软饮料换成纯净水吗？

    你需要额外的时间用少许的微笑点缀你的每一天的生活吗？…

    有太多的 许多 我们可以在生活中前进，无需做什么极大的时间承诺，这些改变会帮助我们了解实在是太容易去形成新习惯，它们会带我们去感受在生活中涌现的诸多好处！

    来吧！给这两种方法一次尝试的机会，发现有多容易去形成新的生活习惯，并推进你的生活！