Trying to start a new habit? Here’s how to make it stick

January is long gone, but you still might be trying to get some new healthy habits to stick.

Dreaming up a healthy habit is easy. Actually starting it — and sticking to it — is the hard part. And it won’t just happen overnight.

Sustaining habits requires a little bit of planning. Here are some tips and tricks on how to make a habit permanent.

How do you make a habit permanent?

These five steps will help you make a habit permanent, according to CNN.

1. Be specific

The more specific your habit is, the easier it is to keep it.

For example, just saying that you want to start exercising is too vague. But setting the goal of walking for 15 minutes daily or strength training for 30 minutes three days a week is specific and achievable.

Per CNN, “Having a bite-size objective makes it less daunting to get started and easier to see your progress.”

2. Create a plan

According to CNN, you need to create a detailed plan based on cues.

“Scientists have proven that you’ll make more progress toward your goal if you decide not just what you’ll do, but when you’ll be cued to do it, as well as where you’ll do it and how you’ll get there,” CNN reported.

Let’s say that you’d like to start reading for 15 minutes each day. You can create a cue-based plan to meet this goal, like choosing to read for 15 minutes every night in bed before you go to sleep.

Following a cue-based plan will make it less likely that “you’ll forget to follow through” on your habits, per CNN.

3. Make it fun

The key to making your habits stick is making them fun.

How you make it fun depends on you. You could try treating yourself — or “temptation building,” according to CNN.

For example, only listen to your favorite podcast when you go for a walk. Or only let yourself enjoy a sweet treat while reading for 30 minutes.

4. Be flexible

It’s important to stick to your plan, but you want to create some breathing room — just in case. That’s because, according to CNN, “if your routine becomes too brittle, you’ll follow through less often.”

For example: If you’re trying to read for 15 minutes before bed, you might find that you have to skip it after a late night. So on the days you know that you’re going to be out late, you could try reading right after work instead.

Another strategy to try is granting yourself “emergency reserves.” Per CNN, “Emergency reserves are a limited number of get-out-of-jail-free cards for those days when you really can’t squeeze in your 10 minutes of meditation, regular jog or Spanish practice.”

5. Get support

When you’re trying to build a healthy habit, tell your friends and family so they can hold you accountable. They might even want to join in.

Habit-building is also a great way to socialize and meet new people. Are you trying to read more? Join a book club. Getting into running? Join a running club.

What are two ways to build a habit?

According to Nike, there are two tactics you can use to kickstart a habit.

1. Start with small changes

Sohee Lee, certified strength and conditioning specialist, told Nike that starting with “the smallest possible iteration” of your desired habit and then getting bigger from there is an easy and non-intimidating way to jumpstart your habit.

Lee said, “Make your behavior so small, so easy, that even on your worst days, you’re still able to do it.”

For example: Let’s say that you’d like to start meditating. Maybe you can start by meditating for a minute every morning before you get out of bed. When you keep it up each morning, it “should start to feel second nature,” according to Nike.

After you’ve kept up this habit for a while, you can move up to five minutes of meditation. Once you do that successfully, you can “gradually increase from there.”

2. ‘Habit stacking’

Both Nike and Lee highlighted a practice they call “habit stacking.” It involves attaching the new behavior you want to adopt to something you already do regularly.

This approach is effective because, by adding a habit on to something you do already, “you use an existing trigger, which makes it easier to smoothly pull the new behavior into your routine,” according to Lee.

Lee suggests taking 20 minutes to write down everything you do each day. That way you can asses the things you’re already doing and determine which habits you can easily stack on your behaviors.

For example: You might want to start using sunscreen everyday. After writing down your daily behaviors, you might realize that you splash water on your face each morning. Therefore, you can easily stack applying sunscreen after splashing your face with water.

How long does it take to form a habit?

There’s been a long-held belief that it takes 21 days to form a habit. But, according to CNN, that just isn’t true. In all actuality, “no magic number exists.”

According to Scientific American, a “hallmark 2009 study” found that habits can form anywhere within 18 to 245 days.