How to Make Sure That Nothing Gets Between You and Your Good Habits
Starting a habit is relatively easy. Maintaining it is the hard part. Last week I talked about how essential habits like meditation and exercise can so easily get cut out of your schedule when things get busy. Most of the people who commented on that post agreed that they had times when essential habits had been ditched when things got hectic in their lives.
However one reader, Robin Dickinson (radsmarts.com) said that no matter what happened (even if he slept in for an important meeting) he would still exercise every morning. He uses an exercise routine that takes only 7-11 minutes so he is able to maintain his habit no matter what. Very impressive!
His approach got me thinking about how this could be applied to other habits. The fact is, if you practice a habit every day you are more likely to continue with it. Every time you miss a day, you run the risk of never returning to the habit again. Many of our commenters on last week’s post could attest to this. One day off from exercising soon turns into a week and then months.
But the problem is that many of our daily habits are not very flexible:
For instance, let’s say you decide to start a habit of meditating for 20 minutes every morning. A common experience would be this:
Day 1: Meditate 20 minutes
Day 2: Meditate 20 minutes
Day 3: Alarm clock didn’t go off. Late for work, so didn’t have time to meditate this morning.
Day 4: Something else came up, didn’t meditate today either.
Day 5 Forgot about meditation habit.
3 months later: “What’s meditation?”
The problem is that life does get busy. And if you don’t plan for these busy times, your new habit is doomed at the first sign of trouble.
What we need to do is make sure that we have a bulletproof habit. A habit that will survive whatever life throws at you. What I suggest is having a “Minimum Daily Commitment”. What that means is that, in this meditation example, you would make a commitment to yourself that no matter what, you would do a minimum of 1 minute of meditation each day i.e:
Minimum Daily Commitment for Meditation = 1 minute.
So on Day 3, even though you were running late you would still force yourself to sit down and meditate for the minimum amount of time, i.e. 1 minute. One minute is such a small amount of time that most people would be able to manage it even if they were running late.
It’s a small amount of time, but because you squeezed in that 1 minute of mediation even when you were rushed off your feet, you will have managed to maintain the habit. The next day, you would have to practice self-discipline and make sure you get back to doing 20 minutes meditation a day, but the fact that you didn’t miss the previous day will make that much more likely. What would have derailed most people’s best intentions has left you unscathed.
Action Step
With an important habit that you have trouble sticking to, have a “minimum daily commitment”. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, ensure that you do at least that minimum amount each day.
Photo by Mookielove // CC by 2.0
Great advice!
People often start with huge goals that they will never continue. Small and manageable objectives are far more realistic.
It is the same with anything; exercise, language study, music, cleaning, etc. Don’t start with 2 hours a day, you will find too many excuses to give up. Just keep a consistent 5 minutes and do it no matter what.
[Reply]
Comment by John Bardos - JetSetCitizen — September 7, 2009 @ 11:39 am
Great idea. I think keeping the habit is paramount. Because in order to become a real ‘habit’, it must be so engrained that you do it without thinking about it. So in your example on day 3 when the alarm clock didn’t go off, not doing meditation wouldn’t be an option because the habit was so strong that it would take force, or effort to *not* do it. But this kind of bullet proof habit, or real habit comes only with constant reinforcement, maybe 60-90 days straight, until you do it without thinking. That’s why doing it *no matter what* in the beginning, you’re making the habit more bullet proof. I like to think of it this way, for every day/time that you miss, it takes 2 extra to make up for it.
Great post!
[Reply]
Comment by Russ Smith — September 7, 2009 @ 3:29 pm
Good why to remember this is to focus on the question “How to eat an elephant - in small chunks” or if you think that the something small everyday isn’t doing anything just rememeber how small a snowflake is but put enough of them together and you have an avalanche.
As a sidenote it takes about 28 days to start or quit a habit.
As always, a good post my friend.
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Comment by Jonny | thelifething.com — September 7, 2009 @ 11:16 pm
Forming a habit can be hard at first, but it pays off when you put strict discipline and appropriate motivation.
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Comment by Walter — September 8, 2009 @ 2:16 am
100% agreed! The biggest thing is setting aside the time and getting used to maintaining that “container” for the habit. It’s like reserving a mug that you keep empty, so that you can fill it when you need it.
Another thing that one could do also is to start with 1 minute, and then add a minute each day, until reaching the desired target (20 minutes, in your example).
[Reply]
Comment by Karthik Kumar | Between a Breath — September 8, 2009 @ 2:54 am
Great advice. I need to focus on meditating more. Every time I have in the past, I have seen a great benefit come from it. Thanks for implementing a great schedule. It will help guide my rebirth of great habits.
Dave
LifeExcursion
[Reply]
Comment by Dave - LifeExcursion — September 8, 2009 @ 4:25 am
Having a minimum daily commitment for whatever one is deciding to improve on is a great concept. It helps one keep the momentum going even on slow days!
Ken
[Reply]
Comment by Ken Kurosawa — September 8, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
Great article, Kaizan, and a great technique!
Regarding habit formation, the only research I’ve heard of on this subject came up with an average habit formation time of 66 days, varying by individual, and tending to be longer for more complex behaviors and shorter for simpler behaviors. I’ve certainly heard people claim 21 days or 28 days, but I’ve never heard any evidence whatsoever for those time periods.
I’ll post a little more on the subject at my blog.
[Reply]
Comment by Luc Reid at The Willpower Engine — September 9, 2009 @ 1:31 am
I forgot that I already had some articles queued up for the site, so the one on how long it takes to form a habit won’t go up until Monday, September 14th. As a quick additional piece of information, the range of times people in the study I cite took to form habits ranged from 18 days to 254 days, with an average of 66 days.
[Reply]
Comment by Luc Reid at The Willpower Engine — September 9, 2009 @ 2:20 am
@John Bardos
Thanks for visiting. I like the examples you have given for other areas to apply this principle.
@Russ Smith
Thanks for the comment. Exactly, the most important thing at the beginning is nurturing the habit. Some people make the mistake of concentrating on how many miles they ran etc, but this is much less important than making sure you develop the habit.
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Comment by Kaizan — September 9, 2009 @ 3:42 pm
@Jonny
Thanks for the comment. Totally agree. Every big task is made of small steps. And once you have your plan set, you only ever need to concentrate on the next step!
@Walter
Agreed!
@Karthik Kumar
Yes, I have tried the slow increase minute by minute thing before with some goals. It can work really well.
[Reply]
Comment by Kaizan — September 9, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
@Dave - Life Excursion
Thanks for the comment. Meditation is one of those things a lot of people put off. It’s something about the “just sitting there” that people seem to have trouble with. It seems so counter-intuitive that sitting there would help you be more effective in life.
Good luck with it
@Ken Kurosawa
That’s exactly right. I didn’t use the word momentum in the post, but I should have! It’s all about keeping up your momentum.
[Reply]
Comment by Kaizan — September 9, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
@Luc
I’d be very interested to see the studies on how long it takes to develop a habit. I look forward to reading your blog on Sep 14…
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Comment by Kaizan — September 9, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
I’ve found this to be very much the case too - that doing less of something helpful to me is way better than cutting it out or skipping it. In one case it even applied to something it wasn’t “supposed” to.
In grad school I didn’t have time to jog three times a week but had always heard that was the minimum. One weekend shortly after school started I just felt like jogging… Turns out that if you’re already in shape, you can keep your heartrate low and feel just fine with a once a week jog for at least as long as a year, which was how long it took me to get my degree.
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Comment by Paul Maurice Martin — September 10, 2009 @ 12:25 am
Hey Kaizan,
Sorry to be so late responding, but I only just saw your reminder tweet (thank goodness for your Twitter prompts).
Thanks for building on our conversation in your post. The real power of these “micro-commitments” is this…
HONOUR THIN SLICES OF TIME & WATCH YOUR HABITS BLOSSOM, EFFORTLESSLY
Conventional wisdom says ‘One minute, what’s the point?’ i.e. there’s a devaluing of what can be achieved in one minute per day. But here in lies the secret (I use that word very loosely).
What you are doing at a much deeper level is honoring a precious, thin slice the most valuable resource in existence - time.
By choosing to do something EVERYDAY for a nominal thin slice of time, you don’t just make time, you make time valuable.
In the manic rush to get things done, so many people end up devaluing time e.g. 60 seconds is useless to take on a substantial habit.
The strange thing is, if you honour time, it honours you. Sounds weird but since I have been thin-slicing my habits, they have been gradually unfolding into my day.
For example, what started as one minute of Mandarin practice everyday (3 months ago), has unfolded to a minimum everyday of 30mins. It just fits in. No productivity smarts. No to-do list management. No priorities. It just happens.
All entirely subjective and anecdotal, but food for thought.
Best of life, Robin
[Reply]
Comment by Robin Dickinson — September 10, 2009 @ 12:01 pm
Learning to listen to the authentic self only ever helps you.
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Comment by Liara Covert — September 10, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
Hi Kaizan. Can’t agree more that we all need “bulletproof habits” to get where we want to go. But here’s something to think about. Does a river need huge willpower or relentless training to find its way downhill? Does heat need to make a habit of rising to reach the ceiling? Of course not. Rivers and warmth make their way naturally. It’s in their nature. Same holds with getting truly important things done in our lives. If we learn the ancient Art of “knowing thyself”, we’ll head like an atomic missile towards goals and dreams that make sense for us and only us. Bystanders may believe we have great willpower or fabulous “habits” for achieving things. But the truth is, we have a real aim in life that guides us. Ciao Kaizan. John Duffield
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Comment by John Duffield — September 11, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
Robin, that thin slice approach is really interesting to me, and I’ll have to experiment with it in my own life. How did you initially remind yourself to do it each day?
[Reply]
Robin Dickinson Reply:
September 24th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Hi Luc, sorry for the delay in answering, but I just noticed your question.
It was easy to remind myself to do it each day because I spent time upfront to choose a goal that was very exciting for me i.e. I have a very high level of motivation towards learning Mandarin.
So when I wake up, I just can’t wait to do it. As I wrote above, what was one minute per day is now at least 30 mins everyday. It gets even easier as I’m now making significant progress.
Hope this helps,
Robin
[Reply]
Comment by Luc Reid at The Willpower Engine — September 14, 2009 @ 2:54 pm
We are defined by our habits and rituals. This is just a simple fact you have displayed so eloquently though words. If you want to change your daily outcome, change your routines.
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Comment by jonathanfigaro — September 14, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
This is too funny!
3 months later: “What’s meditation?” - the soundtrack to the life of millions of people on this planet!
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Comment by jonathanfigaro — May 3, 2010 @ 8:45 pm
I agree with your example of committing to a minimum in order to keep the momentum…BUT you really have to make sure you fall into the trap of making your minimum the new norm.
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