Experience & Habits: How It Connects (at least in my head)

So this is kinda a follow-up from my last (noob-ish 😅) post about learning behavioral design. I just wanna share a bit more detail about how experience and behavior design actually connect at least from what I understand.

To me, they’re linked through emotion.

When you do something again and again, it becomes a habit. And once it becomes familiar, it turns into an experience because you feel it, live through it, or even struggle with it. That's what makes it stick.

So yeah, basically, habits we repeat can become personal experiences. And from there, we can evaluate them, learn from them, and maybe develop better ways forward.

Like when we were kids, trying to ride a bike (I mean real 2-wheel bikes, not balance bikes or those baby 3-wheeled ones 😄). We usually start with training wheels, right? Getting used to pedaling and balancing. Then when we're more confident, we remove one wheel. Then both. And if not with training wheels, maybe someone held the back of our seat until we got the feel of balance.

That process that's a habit becoming experience. And that experience stays with us, even if we grow up and never become a pro cyclist. Maybe we just ride around casually on weekends, flexing our folding bike in the neighborhood 😆. But still, the muscle memory, the emotion, the habit that’s all tied to psychology.

And that, I think, is what behavioral design is really about. Understanding how emotion, habit, and experience all mix up in people’s daily lives and how that can help us design better.

Anyway... that’s what I got from reading, watching, and... well, just thinking (deep thoughts, bro... etdahhh). 😅

Sorry if any explanation is off—it’s just me trying to make sense of things. Still learning, still growing.