You’ve read the motivational quotes. And watched the inspirational TED talks about success habits. You listen to the quotes from ancient Greek philosophers reminding you that “You are what you repeatedly do.” Over and over again, you’ve heard how it takes 21 to 65 days to form a successful habit. It seems simple; then reality sets in and it’s overwhelming and frustrating.
Now what?
Beyond the pages of superfluous books and click-bait videos, habit-forming requires discipline and persistence. It’s not an overnight event and requires diligence, hard work and planning to attain. Habits are the engine of success, and a good habit-forming strategy is crucial to thrive. Here are a few ACTIONABLE steps to include in your habit-forming strategy.
Small changes, Big time frames
Here’s a common fallacy in habit forming: chasing massive behavioral changes in short amounts of time. Underscoring this fallacy is a misunderstanding of a crucial function in habit success: time. Rather than chasing enormous habits (i.e running every day at 6 PM), smaller habits allowed to fester over long periods of time are much more likely to result in structural changes (i.e going for a short afternoon walk, every other day).
True change takes time – enormous changes are not always necessary; in fact they can be harmful. It’s completely human to give up on a large step chance, leaving you demoralized and in a worse position than when you started. Not only that, smaller habits support larger ones. Over time, those afternoon walks will slowly transition to 6 AM runs. In this way, you’re building habits that will last a lifetime.
One success habit at a time
Want to know the easiest way to make sure you stick to your New Year’s resolutions? Stop making resolutions – instead, set a SINGLE achievable resolution. You’re guaranteed to achieve it, and in good time. When people start actively habit forming, they take on far too much at once.
Striving to go from current state to a hyper-athletic, hyper-literate, hyper-successful industrialist in 6 months. By scattering effort to several habit-forming processes, you’ll struggle to nail a success habit.
Instead, it’s better to set a single success habit at a time and work towards it. The momentum of setting that habit will balloon into other ones. Over time, settings habits itself will become a habit, allowing you to start parallel efforts. But you have to let that happen naturally.
Gamification works
There is a lot of evidence out there that gamification – that is, attaching video-game style response/reward systems to guide your efforts – can have a real impact on habit forming. Consider adding large positive feedback loops, especially in the early days of habit forming.
Just went on a 20 minute walk? Fantastic – reward yourself with an hour or 2 of an activity you enjoy doing. The only rule you should follow for the rewards cycle is that the reward shouldn’t negate the benefits of the habit. In other words, don’t reward a 20 minute run with a slice of cake.
Over time, those reward cycles can get shorter and shorter until they’re not necessary at all.
Positive Self-Talk
While this sounds like a fluffy point, it’s actually the most important thing to consider on this list. One of the quickest paths to self-sabotage in habit forming is destructive self-talk. Social media and YouTube have added an exclamation point to this. It’s very common to compare yourself to productivity “gurus” and feel you’ve come up short.
Few people are waking up at 3 AM to go to the gym, hopping in a 20 minute cold shower before homeschooling their marvelously well-behaved kids while simultaneously running an 8 figure businesses. And the people that are doing that certainly weren’t doing that from day 1. It took years of yelping out of cold showers and lethargically crawling into a push up at 2 PM on a Saturday to get there.
Remember Step 1:
Whatever small action you’re taking will get you to where you need to go over time. Worrying about short term results is like grumbling 20 minutes into a 6 hour road trip. You’ll get there eventually, just sit tight and focus on the road.
Consider a 2nd opinion
People hire coaches for physical training, mental wellness & even improving their cooking skills. It’s odd, then, that people shy away from getting 3rd party help for the most important thing in life – personal growth. A good coach can do wonders for building a habit-system, and offers a singularly unique benefit: the ability to holistically figure out “compounding” habits.
Compounding habits are those that have a synergistic effect with each other. For example, improving your sleep cycle will naturally improve your performance at the gym, which will in turn improve your sleep cycle, and so on. It’s hard to structure these synergies yourself. An outside expert who sees how you respond to different habits and comes up with intelligent ways to organize them can be invaluable in this respect.
Whichever way you get there (and regardless of what the “gurus” tell you. There is no right path to successful habit forming. A strong foundation of habits is the basis of virtually any success story. The most important step is the first one. Taking that first step towards forming a new habit is critical.
From then on, it’s smooth sailing.
Check out: Habits of Happy and Successful People
