Building habits that stick
If you’re working from home right now, chances are your routine is a cycle of waking up, logging in, logging off, and going to sleep. Day after day.
However, things are looking up now. At least in the UK, there are talks of there being some sort of normality by June, with restrictions slowly easing in between now and then. And I’m sure many of us are thinking about how, when we’re ‘back to normal’, we’ll be more active, eat right, and get into a proper routine.
But that begs the question: were you like that before this pandemic? If not, then why are you so sure anything will change?
So far, we’ve had an excuse, and a very valid one, to not stick to good habits, telling ourselves that we’ll start when this mess is over. But in fact, if we are 3-ish away from normality, this is the best time to start building, before as always, life gets in the way.
Here’s how you can do that.
Don’t just build habits, build an identity
The narrative around building habits is often quite strange. It feels as though people ‘separate’ habits from themselves, as if they’re an external obligation that’s not in their control.
For example, one of the worst phrases you can use is ‘I’m on a diet’. That’s just wrong. You’re always on a diet because you’re consuming things. The difference comes from whether what you’re consuming is actually good for you or not. By saying you’re ‘on a diet’, you don’t internalise healthy eating. Instead, you’re signalling to yourself that healthy eating is simply a phase and not your natural state.
James Clear in his book Atomic Habits eludes to this. He mentions that, ultimately, a change in behaviour is a result of a change in outcomes, processes and identity, i.e. what you believe and who you want to be.
Your habits are not just habits or quirks that you hope to pick up. They’re now the new norm for you. So rather than saying you are ‘on a diet’, you should say you eat healthily. It’s now a part of who you are, not a change from your normal self.
Focus on what matters
A lot of the time, in order to actually start a habit, we ironically procrastinate around it.
For example, you have an idea for a side-hustle. You start an Instagram page, explaining what the business is and the vision you have, you’ll think about adding a podcast and YouTube channel on top to document the journey, you’ll start looking into making random merchandise for people to buy in support, and you’ll have daily one-hour brainstorming sessions on what you’ll do with the money you earn from your IPO in five years’ time.
Ultimately, you’ve done everything except actually start the side-hustle. Instead, you’ve committed to other things that will take time away from it.
When I started Impact Coffee, I first wanted to start a YouTube channel that was focused on coffee recipes, career advice and productivity challenges. These weren’t going to be small challenges, but would actually take a month to document and film, and were going to happen alongside my full-time job and me building the business.
Ultimately, while it may have supported me, this wasn’t the fundamental action that was going to help me create Impact Coffee. The one thing I actually needed to do was perfect the recipe, followed by perfecting the other elements like branding and packaging.
There’s no doubt that building a social media presence and all the other things help, but they should not come at the cost of distracting you from what you’re actually trying to achieve. They should only be used to support and enhance your goals.
Don’t think about deadlines
I was reading a study on the contestants of the weight-loss show, The Biggest Loser. It was found that before contestants entered, they weighed on average 328lbs. Following the 30-week, intense, strict program where contestants were limited to 1,200 calories a day and 90 minutes of exercise, 6 days a week, the average contestant weighed 199lbs. A huge achievement, no doubt.
However, 6 years after filming, it was found that the average contestant weighed 290lbs, meaning that in the long-run, they gained back about 70% of the weight they lost.
This highlights a major issue when trying to build habits. We’re attracted to the ‘90-day plans’ or the ‘40-day challenges’, thinking that, if we work really hard and are super strict for this finite amount of time, everything will be perfect and we can go back to our old lives without any consequences.
In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Fixating on deadlines does one of two things. Either it makes you crave the end of the ‘challenge’ or ‘plan’ you’re on, so you don’t build the mindset of thinking that this habit is now for life, but rather there will be a time it ends. Or you’ll feel depressed at the end of the challenge because you haven’t hit your ideal target. In both situations, you haven’t done yourself any favours.
Using the same quote from Scott Adams as I did in a previous blog, goals are for losers. What matters are the processes and systems you put in place. Long-run consistency is what leads to success.
Think about the music industry or sports. It’s not the one-hit or one-season wonders we remember for generations, but rather the ones who performed consistently at the top for years, if not decades. They’re the ‘GOATs’.
Make good habits easier, and bad habits harder
It’s a simple one, but it’s the most effective, and there are a few ways you can do this:
1. Accessibility
We revert back to old habits when they’re convenient and accessible. If you had a bowl of sweets or chocolates in front of you, you will indulge yourself. However, if you had a bowl of fruit in front and no chocolates in the house, you’ll either eat the fruit, or you’ll have nothing because fruit doesn’t appeal to you. Either way, you’re working towards breaking the bad habit of eating unhealthy food.
This can be extrapolated to nearly anything. If, say, you wanted to stop procrastinating on social media, then you can add an extension to your browser to block these sites for a period of time during the day. At the same time, delete these apps from your phone. It’ll be difficult to adjust in the first few days, but you’ll ultimately get used to it.
2. Create an endorphin rush
Sometimes it’s difficult to build good habits is because often the benefits come quite far in the future. You’re not going to get abs after one session at the gym, but a greasy double-patty cheeseburger will definitely do the trick immediately to satisfy your hunger cravings.
It’s important to then bring the rewards of good habits forward in some way. That doesn’t mean you can speed up results, but instead you can reward yourself in another way for the good behaviour. For example, I always get a little endorphin rush when I’m able to move my tasks on the Notion app from ‘To-Do’ to ‘Done’ and I have cleared my task list for the day. It gives me a great sense of satisfaction, and keeps me motivated to keep going.
3. Condition yourself
Remember Pavlov’s dog?
In a very similar way, try and build your surroundings and create stimuli that help you get ‘in the zone’. For example, the worst thing you can do is work in your bedroom. Your bedroom is for sleeping, so working in there will only mean you’ll feel drowsy when working and won’t be able to switch off when trying to sleep.
While having an office in your home is a luxury, you can find other ways to condition your response for when you need to work or perform, and when you can play. For example, I have a pair of headphones and a pair of earphones. I only wear my headphones for when I’m working and earphones for when I want to relax. So when I put on the headphones, I genuinely feel the difference; I feel more focused and more like I’m at work, whereas with my earphones I definitely feel more relaxed and a bit easier.
Doing things at the exact same time everyday can also help (give or take a few minutes of course). I like to do some sort of workout at 7pm, and I’ve made sure that there’s nothing else happening at that time to distract me. An hour or so before, I start gearing up for it unconsciously, and so when the clock strikes 7, I’m mentally prepared for the workout.
Summary: It will be worth it
Starting something new and ‘good for you’ is uncomfortable. It’s a pain to plan, it’s disruptive for your usual routine, and sometimes it’s just unpleasant. But there will come a time when sticking to your newly formed habits will become the new ‘comfortable’. People try to put a time to this turning point, be it 3 weeks or 3 months. But the truth is, it varies from person to person.
For the longest time, I was an unfit, overweight kid. When I started going to the gym, I hated it, with every fibre of my being. I hated the pain, the sweat, the nausea, everything.
After 3 months and a lot of progress, I still hated it.
It took the best part of a year for me to feel that switch, where it felt better to work out and eat right than not. Again, this was my own timeline, and there have been other things in my life that have been easier to stick to than others. Either way, don’t keep searching or waiting for this to happen as if the stars will align. It will happen organically, so long as you keep going. And the way you can keep going is by:
- Building an identity, not just habits
- Focusing on what matters
- Forgetting about arbitrary deadlines
- Making good habits easier and bad habits harder
