The idea that someone wakes up one day, and conquers the world, vanquishing anyone in his way is a delusion fed to us by Hollywood. It’s dramatic, high-stakes, and consistently not based in reality.
Instead, successful habits are built gradually over time, step by step. The first step to building a habit is to have intention- what are you trying to do? When you directionally know where to go, you can begin to think about how to start getting into the habit.
This is where media depictions of success tend to go off the rails. At the next stage, you need to condition basic behavior. One improv game that gets to this idea is called dolphin training. In dolphin training, positive stimulus is given whenever the person does something that brings them closer to achieving the goal. Consistently doing this creates excitement, and gets people going.
Human behavior follows a similar approach. People need to take baby steps towards an approach, and getting reinforcement along the way. During this time, the identity of the person starts to shift, allowing for them to change their habits more permanently. If I’m the sort of person who starts going to the gym for social acceptance, I can continue long after the original stimulus is removed.
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