Seeking Advice on Habit Formation
A person is asking a more experienced individual for advice on how to build a new positive habit (e.g., daily exercise, reading) or break a negative one, discussing various techniques like habit stacking or environmental design.
Dialogue
Listen and follow along with the conversation
Vocabulary
Essential words and phrases from the dialogue
habit
A habit is a regular action or behavior that you do almost without thinking, like brushing your teeth every day. In this dialogue, it's used to talk about forming new positive habits for self-improvement.
stick with it
This phrase means to continue doing something even when it's difficult. It's a common expression for persistence, like 'I can't stick with my diet.' Here, Sarah uses it to describe struggling to keep her reading habit.
habit stacking
Habit stacking is a technique where you attach a new habit to an existing one to make it easier to remember and do. For example, 'After I brush my teeth, I will meditate.' It's a practical strategy for building routines.
tricky
Tricky means difficult or complicated to do or understand. In conversations about challenges, it's used casually, like 'Learning guitar is tricky at first.' Michael says habit formation can be tricky.
environmental design
Environmental design refers to arranging your surroundings to support good habits and discourage bad ones, like placing fruits on the counter to eat healthier. It's a key concept in personal development for making changes easier.
streaks
Streaks are continuous sequences of successful actions, like checking off days on a calendar for completing a habit. Seeing streaks motivates people to keep going, as Michael explains for tracking progress.
Key Sentences
Important phrases to remember and practice
I've been trying to build a new habit – reading for 30 minutes every morning – but I'm really struggling to stick with it.
This sentence uses present perfect continuous 'I've been trying' to show an ongoing effort, and 'struggling to stick with it' is an idiomatic expression for difficulty in persisting. It's useful for describing personal challenges in goal-setting conversations.
Habit formation can be tricky, but there are some techniques that really help.
This sentence contrasts difficulty ('can be tricky') with solutions ('techniques that really help') using 'but' for balance. 'Really help' emphasizes effectiveness. Use this pattern to give advice on overcoming problems in self-improvement talks.
It's basically linking a new desired habit to an existing, established habit.
Here, 'basically' simplifies an explanation, and 'linking...to' shows connection. 'Desired' means wanted, and 'established' means well-formed. This structure is great for defining concepts clearly when teaching or advising on habits.
Make it easier to do the good habit and harder to do the bad one.
This imperative sentence gives direct advice using 'make it + adjective + to infinitive' for suggestions. It's a practical command form useful in motivational discussions, focusing on environmental changes for habit building.
Seeing those streaks can be really motivating.
This uses 'seeing...can be' to express a general benefit, with 'really motivating' as an intensifier. 'Streaks' refers to chains of success. Use this to explain how tracking progress encourages continued effort in personal growth scenarios.