Good habits are foundational to achieving your goals.
However, what they aren’t, is easy to build - and getting them to stick around is even harder, which is why so many people try to start reading more, eating better, or going to the gym - only to find themselves heading back to the warm familiarity of Netflix, Cheetos, and the 68 calories per hour they burn by sitting just days later.
Of course, most of those people make things harder for themselves because they don’t go about building those habits in a smart way.
So today, we’re going to go over 4 common habit-building mistakes and how you can avoid them.
Jumping into the deep end right away
Either taking on too many habits at once, or attempting to build a really difficult habit instead of starting small. Example: Telling yourself that you’re going to read 50 pages of a book every day, rather than starting off with just 10. Or telling yourself that you’ll practice piano for 2 hours every day, instead of aiming for 15 minutes. All progress is made in small steps. Even Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the moon was a small one. The “giant step for mankind” that he referenced next was a nod to the years of incremental progress and small refinements made by not only the astronauts themselves, but by the thousands of engineers, scientists, and technicians that supported them. They knew that we weren’t getting to the moon in one gigantic leap. They knew that to do something great, it would take years of incremental progress - and that progress is only possible if the objective at each stage is one that’s just slightly out of reach, but still doable. Another group of people who know this well are game designers. A game designer can build all sorts of interesting elements into their game, but most people will get overwhelmed and stop playing if everything is thrown at them all at once. That’s why designers build in steady progression. Take a game like Hollow Knight. Eventually, you’ll be double jumping, dashing, and using different powers to fight multiple enemies at once - but in the beginning, all you can do is jump and swing your sword at a beetle. So take a queue from the astronauts and game designers. Start small, and then build what the author Nick Winter calls a “Success Spiral”. Make your initial habits easy - read 10 pages, practice piano for 15 minutes, get up half an hour earlier than you usually do. As you prove to yourself that you can handle your habits - as you spiral up - slowly make them more difficult. Move that reading goal from 15 minutes a day to 30. Or slowly add more to your plate. But in the beginning, start small and keep things simple.
Assuming there is no chimp.
A few years ago, I came across this really cool band called Chimpspanner. If you like really technical, instrumental metal, I’d recommend you check them out. Though I liked their music, the name always confused me. I had no idea what Chimpspanner meant - that is, until a couple years later when my friend Simon used the word “spanner” to refer to a wrench. That’s when it hit me - “Chimp spanner” = “monkey wrench." This also helped me understand the old saying, “throw a spanner in the works.” It’s a monkey wrench. Now, that’s just an interesting tidbit about the differences in UK and US words, but here’s the point: There’s always a proverbial chimp waiting to throw a spanner into your habit-building work. And the big mistake that people make when trying to build new habits is assuming the chimp isn’t there. They assume that everything will go well all the time, and that nothing unexpected will pop up to derail them - which, of course, means they’re not ready when something inevitably happens, and then they get derailed because of it. So, realize that the chimp is always there, ready to throw a spanner in the works. Or, to put that the way Charles Duhigg would in his book The Power of Habit, anticipate inflection points - points you’re likely to run into pain or some inconvenience that might derail you - and then plan for them in advance. For some of these points, you simply need to be ready to accept the discomfort they’ll cause. In the book, Duhigg reports on a study that focused on people who had gotten knee and hip replacement surgeries. In order to fully recover from a surgery like this, you have to start moving and exercising very soon after it happens - but doing so is really painful. many people never recover because they can’t bring themselves to accept the pain. So this study had the participants simply write down goals and action steps that would lead to exercise. These were often really simple - like one man’s plan to walk down to the bus stop to meet his wife - but writing them meant the participants were anticipating moments of pain and planning on how to deal with them. And the people who did this started walking almost twice as fast as the average patient. It’s worth noting that not all inflection points have to be faced head on like this, because many can be avoided through good planning. I’ll give you one example: When I get up in the morning, I make a smoothie (video here) - Now, this habit could easily be derailed if I ran out of certain ingredients, like the milk I use - so I make sure that never happens by following a rule I learned from the CGP Grey’s Cortex podcast - “2 is 1, and 1 is none.” I always make sure to have a backup; that way, I can’t get derailed by something running out.
Choosing not to sit beneath the sword.
In Ancient Greek history there is the story of The Sword of Damocles, in which a courtier - Damocles - is given all the power and luxury of a king for a day. However, placed above his throne there was also a giant sword, which hung by a single horse’s hair. For Damocles, the riches and luxury weren’t enough to keep him sitting under that dangling sword, and he quickly gave up the power that he’d be given. In the story, the Sword is a metaphor for the precariousness of power - one false move could set tragic events into action. And because of this, I’ve always thought of the Sword of Damocles when building new habits BECAUSE… I like to set one up for myself when doing so. In other words, I set up consequences for failure. Most people choose not to do this. They choose not to sit beneath that metaphorical sword. And without the threat of some consequence looming above them, they often lack the self-discipline to stick to their chosen habit over the long term. So how do you “sit under the sword”? For me, the best way of doing this is to use what are called commitment devices - external systems that are set up to track my progress and ensure that there will be some kind of consequence if I fail to stick to my habits. The simplest example of this, which doesn’t require any kind of special app or tool, is just to make a bet with a friend. A few years ago, I bet my friend Martin that I’d read 25 pages a day for 3 months. If I skipped even one day, I’d pay him $100. And to stay accountable, I gave him a link to a spreadsheet where I tracked my progress. If you do want to use an app, though, there’s Beeminder and Stickk, both of which act as that friend for you and can charge you money if you fail to stick to your habits. And there are also habit trackers, like Strides, HabitHub (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rstudioz.habits), and Habitica. These let you track your progress, and the main consequence they bring to the table is the threat that your streak will be broken - though Habitica also includes game elements like gear, experience, and multiplayer quests - so your character can lose health or even die if you slack off. Whatever you choose to use, I highly recommend find some way to hang that metaphorical sword of Damocles over your head - at least until you know the habit you’re trying to build is fully ingrained.
Trying to build a habit without a strong, personally meaningful reason for doing so.
As Simon Sinek would say, you need to start with why. Don’t try to adopt a habit just because someone you follow does it, or just because it’s on some YouTuber’s morning routine video. That doesn’t mean that your favorite YouTuber’s morning smoothie isn’t something you should adopt into your own routine - but before doing so, ask yourself if it’ll help you move toward what actually matters to you. As James Clear rightly points out in his book Atomic Habits:"Good habits can make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.”And you have to keep this in mind, because it can be so easy to get caught up in emulation for the wrong reasons. Reading example - you feel like all the successful people are reading a ton of books, so you think you need to as well. But what if the thing you want to learn right now would be better learned in a different way? Reading a book isn’t the only way to learn something. Sometimes you learn by tinkering and messing around, or by going to class, taking a course, or going down a messy Google rabbit hole. You can’t really track your Google rabbit holes on Goodreads, and you can’t put them up on a shelf in your garage next to your Lamborghini. It’s hard to brag about them. But that doesn’t make them useless. And depending on what you’re trying to do, that method of learning might be more useful than reading a book - which means that you should probably dial back your reading goal to make room for it.
For example, one of my main interests right now is learning how to produce music. There are plenty of books out there about this topic, but at the moment, I’m still trying to figure out how to use Logic - and the best way I’ve found for doing that is to spend time trying to do things in it, and looking up tutorials when I get stuck. At the moment, doing this is far more useful than going through book.
So, to briefly summarize:
Start small and build success spirals. Don’t try to do too much at once. Anticipate inflection points. Plan to avoid them if possible, and if not, mentally prepare for the discomfort they’ll bring. Sit beneath the sword. Integrate accountability and consequences into your habit building efforts. Start with why. Make sure you have a personally meaningful reason for each habit you choose to build.