We are what we habitually do.
We’re our habits and our actions.
We are not our thoughts or feelings.
You might think of yourself as a good person. You don’t wish anyone overt harm. But if you don’t habitually do good things, you are not a good person.
Most people aren’t good. They aren’t particularly bad either. They’re mediocre, because their habits and actions are mediocre.
I call myself a writer.
I should be ashamed.
I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing.
Two years ago, I kept a daily writing quota and clocked thousands of words a day. I wrote novels and kept the articles on this website and a few others on the side. I was a writer.
So now I’m going back to the basics. And that means keeping myself accountable and committing consistent actions that align with that identity.
I’m a runner now. It happened over the course of a month. And not just any runner. I’m a runner training for a marathon. And in four-and-a-half months, after the blood on my nipples has dried, if I continue to run consistently, I can call myself a marathon runner.
If I stop running, I will cease to be a runner.
The only reason I’m a runner today is because I ran today. And I ran yesterday and the day before yesterday. I’ll run tomorrow. And I’ll do a long run on the weekend too. I’ll clock the time and watch the hours and miles stack up.
Habits are hard to form and hard to break.
Most people are good at getting started. Gyms are packed in January. Setting New Year’s resolutions gives you a dopamine boost. But it takes roughly a month-and-a-half to solidify a habit and make it a consistent, congruent part of your lifestyle.
Sixty or so days and the habit becomes automatic. It feels odd if you don’t do it. Problem is most people don’t reach that inflection point.
You know how many people I saw jogging past me on January 1st? Seven. And I live in a rural stretch of nowhere at the moment.
You know how many people I saw one week later? Zero. I jogged at the same time, outside work hours, and no one was beating the road alongside me.
So how do we make it easier to form new habits?
Follow my advice blindly without question for the next six months of your life and you will be unrecognisable to the people in your life.
The first thing you want to do in order to easily form a new habit is to take advantage of this one psychological principle:
Loss aversion.
Would you rather:
- Receive $50 for reading a chapter?
- Not lose $50 for reading a chapter?
The second answer is the correct one.
Carrots are great, and should form an integral part of your motivation systems, but nothing motivates a squishy ill-tempered human quite like the prospect of a hard stick.
We’ll work harder not to lose money than we would for more money.
Download the SPAR app, hook up your credit card info, commit to creating a new habit, and then if you fail you will be billed. There’s no Nigerian Prince on the other end taking your money either. All cash goes into a pot and is split among the victors.
What victors? Well, that’s another great thing this app does. It takes advantage of the second most valuable psychological motivation:
Social pressure.
You’ll be in a group of people all fighting valiantly for the same habit as you.
Whether you use this app or not, the principle remains the same.
Going public about your goals, plans, and desired habits makes it easier for you to achieve them.
Or, to rephrase it more precisely, it makes it harder for you to rationalise not sticking to them.
You know what sucks?
Losing a bunch of money because you didn’t do something simple that you want and know will benefit your life because you’re lazy.
You know what’s embarrassing?
Telling a bunch of people you’re going to run a marathon, read a book a week, start a new business, or quit smoking, only to have them watch you pathetically give up a week or two later.
Put your money on the line and tell everyone you can about your goals.
Here’s a warning though:
Telling people about plans for positive change is rarely met with enthusiasm.
If someone in your life responds with encouragement and excitement, you should keep that person close to you. Many, however, will doubt you. They’ll tell you it’s a stupid idea. They’ll tell you that you can’t do it.
They’ll say you’ll fail.
Why do people who are supposed to love us behave like this?
Sometimes they truly want what’s best for you and they’re worried you’re going to hurt yourself. They’re worried you’ll get injured in the gym or you’ll lose the money you borrowed for those night classes or you’re too old to start painting. Sometimes they’re jealous.
If you ever watch those extreme weight loss shows, you’ll see a consistent theme. Obese people who come from obese families have a tough, nearly insurmountable hurdle to overcome. They want to lose weight, but their family will continue eating buckets of fried chicken in front of them and despise them for wanting to be better than them.
If you find yourself surrounded by people who respond negatively to your positive change, just understand they either are misguided but want the best for you, or they’re jealous. Either way, disregard their opinion and carry on, bolding striving towards a better You.
So the two most powerful habit-formers are:
- Loss aversion
- Social accountability
What else?
Be wary of setting overly-ambitious goals.
We over-estimate how much we can achieve in a year, but underestimate how much we can achieve in five years.
Consistent action racks up.
Going zero to a hundred straight out of the gate leads to burn-out.
I fall for this time and again. I need to constantly remind myself to more realistically realign my goals.
I set the goal of doing a long-run a couple weeks back in order to hit ten miles over the course of two hours. But then I talked myself through it (always talk yourself through things). Have you ever ran two hours consistently before? No. Have you ever clocked ten miles in a single session? No. Have you done half of that? No. So, what’s the most you’ve ran? The answer is about forty-five minutes and I’ve never ran that consistently. Right, so why are we hurtling towards Injuryville? You take 10% of your personal best last week and set that as a goal to aim for. That means the next long-run will be closer to an hour.
I used to write ten thousand words a day.
That’s a lot of words. It didn’t happen overnight. I built up to it. For years I hovered around one to two thousand words a day. Would I advise a completely new writer to follow either of those quotas? No. I’d tell them to nail the habit of sitting down to write and, if they must clock a word count, hit five hundred a day for five days minimum. Then come back in a couple of weeks and we’ll talk about bolstering those numbers.
Believe in the power of small actions.
Don’t go out and buy a new Fitbit, expensive running shoes, protein powders, fat burners, pre-workouts, and muscle mags if you haven’t stepped in the gym for ten years. Instead, pack your gym bag each night and leave it by the front door. Or have it waiting for you in the car. This is a reminder for you to simply get yourself in the gym consistently.
If your goal is to eat more vegetables, and you’re aiming to eat broccoli three times a week, you better make sure your vegetable drawer is stocked up with enough broccoli on Sunday night. Because if it isn’t, life will get in the way, you’ll be tired after work, and you’ll rationalise ordering take-out instead of going on a health-food stock-up mission.
And be wary of adding too many new habits at once.
Adding one or two at a time until they feel natural is the best course of action. The fox that chases two rabbits catches none. But you can catch rabbit after rabbit consistently if you concentrate on each on single-mindedly each time.
Having said that, habit stacking is a glorious thing. You can take advantage of pre-existing habits and routines and use them as anchors for new ones.
Some habits effortlessly work together. The habit of running works in tandem with the habit of getting up early for a lot of people. You’re setting your alarm half-an-hour earlier because you have a run to do. If there’s a training partner, or money on the line, or people who know what you’re trying to achieve, then all the more motivation to actually roll out of bed, rub the sleep out of your eyes, and tie up your running shoes.
And when you come back from that run, you’re going to feel more fresh. You’ll have the energy, motivation, good mood, and clear-headedness to work on your business. And you’re feeling healthy, so you don’t want to ruin things with a breakfast that will leave you in a slump. You’ll put together something fresh and healthy so your body can refuel.
And what do you do during your run? You have a few audiobooks downloaded to pass the time. So now you’re reading a chapter a day by listening to audiobooks on your run.
That’s the power of habit stacking.
You also want to schedule your habits.
Make blocks of time available when you’re planning out your week and put enough time on certain days as though you were scheduling an important appointment.
I personally find blocks of thirty minutes to work perfectly.
For language learning, that might look like thirty minutes using Babbel during the week around dinner time, and having an hour-long language lesson on iTalki on the weekend.
For reading, that might look like having a pre-selected book by your bed, putting your phone on airplane mode, turning on the Forest app, and reading straight for thirty minutes.
2020 for me has already kicked off some exciting new habits:
- Running
- Podcasting
- Language learning
(I’ve also found myself returning to consulting and moving into a completely new industry)
I’m a complete beginner in all of those domains. I’ve learnt a language before, but I’m starting from scratch with a brand new language challenge. It can be easy to get overwhelmed or overcomplicate things when you’re a beginner.
What training program should I use? Do I need those sugar gels during a run? Do I stretch before or after a run?
How do I remove the background noise from a recording? How do I record two people talking over Skype? Where do I even begin promoting a podcast with no listeners?
Would knowing Japanese help learning a Romance language? How long should I delay speaking? Am I even learning the right language?
Learn to love these questions. They’ll be answered in due time.
Just take advantage of being a beginner.
When you’re completely new to something, anything works.
Just get going!