Micro-habits

One of the strategies employed in the Eternal Warriors and Sons of Helaman programs is to set up behavior goals, which you work towards until you can get 28 perfect days to establish a habit. In doing these daily behaviors, one must choose what they value, over what they feel like. I like the concept of a micro habit from this article.
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/10/22/how-to-create-habits-that-stick-giveaway/

Step 1: Create A “Micro-habit” That Helps Achieve Your Big Goal

Not all habits are created equal – and some require much more cognitive power than others.

Simple habits like making breakfast in the morning require relatively few steps: Take out bowl. Pour cereal. Pour milk. Eat.

More complex habits are combinations of several simple habits. Consider all the automation that goes into driving a car. You don’t need to think about how to operate a car because the behaviors are so deeply embedded that it becomes a habit, but it’s actually a fairly complex process.

Think about it:

• You have to get to your car, open the door, and get in.
• You adjust your mirrors and your seat.
• You put on your seat belt.
• You start the car, and use complex spacial awareness of distance and time to leave your driveway…backwards.
• You start driving (even more steps if the car is a stick shift).
• You navigate your destination mentally, or you use part of your brain to both look and listen while a GPS directs you.
• You have to move in speed and synchronicity with other cars. And the occasional idiotic motorcyclist with a death wish.
• Don’t forget to put on your turn signal.
• All this while the radio is playing. And you’re on the phone making dinner plans.

And when you get to work, you don’t even remember how you got there.

So how do we intentionally automate these processes to make even complex tasks less daunting?

In my case, what was the secret to making myself get to the gym?

Rather than try to force myself every day, I simply created a “micro-habit” that I knew would lead to the intended behavior. A micro-habit is a single, tiny action that necessarily leads to a bigger action.

If you want to floss your teeth, just floss one tooth. Commit to flossing just ONE tooth — and make that your goal for the day. If you are able to do that, you’ve accomplished your goal. You can check it off your list.

But here’s the trick: Once you perform the micro-habit enough times, it becomes much harder NOT to complete the entire habit than to simply do the whole thing.

In order to ensure that I got to the gym, my micro-habit was simply to swipe my card at the the entrance.

That’s it. Just swipe.

I picked a gym that was on my way back from work and every time I passed it, all I had to do was walk upstairs and swipe my card. After that, if I wanted to, I could go home.

Funny enough, it worked almost immediately. Some days, all I could do was swipe the card and leave. But 90% of the time I found myself saying, “Well…I’m already here…might as well just walk on the treadmill or something.”

An hour later, I’d completed the workout, and it was entirely because of the micro-habit, which took almost zero effort.

What micro-habit could you try?

If you want to run every morning, maybe you keep your running shoes by the bed and simply commit to putting them on in the morning.

If you want to write more, maybe you commit to writing just five words on a sheet of paper every day with breakfast.

If you want to read more, maybe you commit to just reading one paragraph and putting the book down.

It’s totally fine if all you can do is your micro-habit. But you’ll find that more often than not you end up doing much more.

I used this micro-habit formula to build motivation, and then I enlisted the help of an objective accountability partner to check in with daily to ensure that I stayed on track.