You've read a few great 'self-improvement' posts here, in this subreddit. You decided to start doing/improving those activities from tomorrow. You do it for a few days, and then revert back to your old schedule of mindless activity. This happens most of the time unless you're extremely motivated for a change. Why?

The answer is pretty simple. First, lets look at the 'habit theory'.

Habit theory: Our brain is efficient. It tries to reduce it's mental activity by developing patterns. For example, you don't mentally take a conscious decision to apply toothpaste before brushing. You just do it. These unconscious mental patterns then evolve into either habits or addictions [both are same, in principle. Explained below].

The process is extremely simple. Hook/need -> routine -> pleasure. Let me take an example of the habit of 'working out' for example.

Hook -> The need to look good physically. In some cases, to get women. Routine ->The process of working out. The pain. Pleasure -> You take a good look into the mirror after working out and feel good about yourself.

After your brain gets accustomed to the above process, something called 'conditioning' takes place. You experience 'pleasure' before the 'routine'. In Pavlov's experiment[look it up], dogs started salivating to the sound of the bell even when the smell of food isn't there. This is called a habit.

This is why working out is natural to some of us while others struggle to maintain a habit. It takes 'conditioning'. It takes time for your brain to get 'conditioned' so that thinking about working out is probably enough to get that rush in your body. This is in fact the definition of an addiction.

I get it that addiction is a bad thing but a habit is a good thing but both of them have similar processes. We just associate habit with good and addiction with bad. They are both same. You might have started smoking/drinking/snorting initially just because you want to get high. Later on, you just do it because you are 'conditioned' to do it. You just do it for silly reasons such as boredom.

You might have noticed that in the above case, the 'pleasure' part is there. But you just don't experience it because you are accustomed to it. You don't experience pleasure if you keep on abusing it.

I would like to thank everyone who read the boring theory. Hope it helps. Now let's get to the fun part. How to develop a habit,especially something which doesn't provide pleasure?Let's consider the example of 'waking up early' to explain the process.

To wake up early, first you need a hook. What you have to do is create a 'need' to wake up early. This can be easily achieved. I don't have to explain this. The next step is to create a routine.

Look at your current sleeping pattern first. You probably wake up at 8:30 am and sleep at 2 am. So, devise a strategy where you sleep deprive yourself by sleeping at 2 but wake up at 6 (alarm clock). The strategy itself is the routine.

You probably feel shitty and sleep deprived after waking up at 6. You probably will go back to sleep again. Remember that there's no 'pleasure' part here. You need to develop a pleasure. (What I did was wake up at 6 and search for some youtube funny/thuglife videos and just laugh. This worked for me just fine. )

The most important thing to understand is that the 'pleasure' itself is not important because you'll eventually get addicted/habituated to waking up early due to 'conditioning' as I mentioned above. So, just develop a pleasure in the initial stages so that you don't feel shitty after waking up early. (What generally happened to me was that I got bored of watching funny videos since I was addicted so I replaced it with running for ten min after waking up.)

So, there you go. To make a habit you have to develop a 'need' first. Then create your routine. And finally a little 'pleasure' to trick your brain into forming a pattern. (Initially, I didn't like working out. So, I developed a habit of eating chocolate right after lifting. It worked. I don't eat chocolate anymore and I still workout everyday. It's just an addiction now.Or habit. Whatever you call it.)

Similarly to break a habit, you have to get rid of its 'routine' first. Then replace it with something useful. (When I felt like shit, I used to smoke. The habit eventually turned into a 'pack-a-day' addiction. What I did at first was to get rid of the habit by doing something else. Whenever I craved, I replaced it with chewing gum. Initially it felt weird but now, I just don't smoke anymore. Since I'm not addicted chewing gum, it was easy to get rid of the habit. )

I used a similar technique to stop fapping too. First, I installed a content blocker and blocked all the porn. Whenever I craved, I replaced it with writing a post in my blog. It feels initially weird but it will work. To make the temporary habit work,you have to use the principle of associating pleasure of the original habit with something other pleasure at first.

The above paragraph seems confusing but what I was trying to say is you should replace a habit with another habit to break a habit. Hope this post helps.