Harnessing the Power of Habits:
Simple Steps to Lasting Change
Jason Garvin8 min read
Ever feel like your life is a hamster wheel of procrastination
powered by Netflix and snacks? Me too. But fear not, there's a
way out, and it involves something more powerful than sheer willpower:
habits.
Think of this as your habit-forming hackathon, where we'll
go far beyond the unhelpful "just do it" mantras and dig deep into the
science of habit forming to plan strategies that work for you.
Let's transform those daunting goals into automatic routines that
empower you to achieve lasting change, and finally conquer that
mountain of laundry (or whatever your personal Everest may be).
Ditch the sweatpants and grab your coffee–it's time to harness
the power of habits to become the unstoppable, productive human you
were always meant to be.
Setting
Meaningful Goals
Have you ever made a New Year's resolution?
According to recent research,
while 77% of people can follow through on these goals for a
week, only 19% found success across two years. This means you and
I are not alone in shrugging off our new commitments by January 12th.
The good news is, it’s not our fault! Well, sort of, anyway.
The problem with New Year’s resolutions as a generalization is they
often lack concrete measurements of success
or the goal stretches too far into the future. For example,
"I'm going to blog this year,” or “I’m going to start exercising.”
Over the last two years, I’ve become a mastermind of new habit
formation. It’s almost too good. Sometimes I start doing something
casually for the fun of it and before I know it, that thing’s been
absorbed into my routine. Coincidentally, I’ve also set exactly zero
New Year’s resolutions.
I do this by focusing on adding one thing at a time
into my routine until it's automatic. Most recently,
that’s been writing (and by extension, blogging). When I recently
started this process with writing, my goal was to write once a week.
I didn’t set an amount of writing. A paragraph was the same as an
essay as an entire chapter book in fulfilling the goal.
Then it escalated to twice a week with the same rules. Then twice a
week with the requirement to write at least a paragraph.
Now, three months later, I consistently write 3 to 5 times per week
without even thinking about it, and I am training myself to focus
that more towards blog posts.
Don't take my word for it, either. You can
read my review of 2023
for a deeper exploration of what worked (and didn't) in my life last year.
To generalize my approach, let's break down building a new habit into
the following steps:
Set a modest, achievable, and measurable goal. This should be
easy to accomplish. It’s about confidence building.
Pick a time and place each day where you’ll work towards the goal.
(If you need help with this, you can
read more about managing your time
to become more effective at prioritizing new tasks).
Continue to achieve that goal for a few weeks. Notice how good it
feels to achieve your goal. Live in that excitement and compliment
your dedication.
Increase the scope of the goal. Add another day
each week of that activity, or increase the intensity. Keep it
achievable and small, but larger than it used to be.
Once again reinforce your success, and address roadblocks if you
slip. Keep trying until you consistently achieve this goal for 3-5 weeks.
Increase the intensity further towards your goal.
What if you don’t have a larger goal for it to feed into?
Thankfully, you don’t need one. In my case, I had a focused endpoint,
but if creating the new habit is the endpoint, then the above
is enough to get you most of the way there.
In my experience, getting the ball rolling is the hardest part.
That’s why this blog includes the title “Overcoming Inertia,” instead of
“Casually Rolling to Success,” or something else fluffy-sounding.
If you’ve ever moved furniture out of a rut in the carpet, you know
from experience. The first motion out of your resting place is the
hardest. Your resting place might be an established routine, a lie
you’re telling yourself, or an overburdening of commitments that
leave you feeling paralyzed.
All is not lost, however. There are some tried and true methods to
take that first step and begin building momentum. The best news of
all is that momentum is surprisingly hard to lose once you have it.
To parallel the earlier article about
habit formation,
did you know it’s equally (or even more) difficult to
break a habit?
For this, let’s look at how writers and artists overcome a blank page:
make a mark, any mark, and remove the decision paralysis from the
equation altogether. I believe that the first mark is similar to the
first push of momentum. By removing the paralysis of infinite
possibilities, you help yourself narrow down to what matters most.
This approach works for more than just creative pursuits. Sometimes
the only way to start really is by starting, plain and simple. If you
can get over the initial activation energy required to start the
activity, you'll be amazed how much further that momentum often carries you.
There are other methods that use external momentum to lead us towards
habit formation, too. If taking the first step
yourself is too much, try leaning on others' motivation instead.
There’s a fascinating trend lately called
body doubling,
which is essentially working alongside another person to force
yourself to stay focused. Sitting beside someone (or even in the same
room) as someone doing work encourages you to get productive as well.
Similarly, working in a public space works for some people. With me,
for example, if I sit in a coffee shop I'm less likely to get distracted
because I feel social pressure from those around me that makes goofing off
feel undesirable.
There's no end to methods you can try when building new hobbies. Get
your friends and family involved, make it silly, follow a pre-determined
routine from the internet. What matters is finding a method that works
best for you.
Try out the suggestions here, but don't be afraid to innovate. More
important than following my exact routine, or these exact steps, is
learning more about yourself and what helps you take the first step.
You’ll find yours–keep experimenting and stick with what works best.
Learning to Achieve
Flow
If you’ve been on the internet in, oh, the last few years, you’ve
probably come across the idea of flow. Especially common amongst
programmers, artists, and athletes, flow is essentially the
state of losing yourself in an activity.
Many people have studied flow, and there’s a great deal of information
available on the physiological and neurological changes that happen
when someone enters flow.
Yet, getting yourself into flow is more difficult than the research
might suggest, and simultaneously way easier than you’re anticipating.
The first step is not to overthink. Thinking about flow is maddeningly
likely to make it less likely you achieve it. Thinking about anything
too much makes it hard to enter flow. When we spend our time thinking,
we’re focused internally, whereas flow requires external focus on a
task or process.
Without engaging with the outside world, you’ll struggle to reach
flow and, thus, struggle to become as productive as you’d like.
Flow helps develop healthy habits, and to grow the habits we already
have. Say I’ve started blogging–I’ve taken that first step–and now
I need to perform. Flow is how I go from writing little bits of blogs
over several weeks to banging out an entire draft in an afternoon.
It’s also how to have great editing sessions, develop new features,
design a logo, or train for a marathon.
So, we know why it’s helpful and how to not achieve flow, but how do
we get ourselves into this magical state?
First, we engage in an activity we’re familiar with, that we know
intrinsically and don’t have to think to accomplish. The phrase
“like riding a bike” comes to mind, where once you’ve learned it
you don’t have to think it through each time.
Next, we have to focus on that activity. If we’re multitasking or
overthinking, we’re an obstacle to ourselves.
The activity then has to be appropriately difficult. If it’s too
easy we get bored or distracted, and if it’s too hard we get
frustrated, hit roadblocks, and give up. Finding the edge of what
you can do and what you can’t do is essential to flow.
Finally, it's time to focus on completing that activity to the
best of your ability, challenges and all.
Flow is essential not only in overcoming inertia but also in excelling
at a new hobby once we’ve taken the first steps and feel more familiar.
Flow helps us overcome the feeling of stagnation that comes from doing
something repeatedly without pushing ourselves.
In turn, pushing ourselves helps us overcome future roadblocks by
maintaining discipline and momentum in our lives.
Becoming
Resistant
to Distraction
By this point in the process, we know how to get started, we know
how to pursue challenges, and we know why challenging ourselves makes
us better at the habits we're building. That's our foundation done!
The last piece, truly, is consistency.
I’ve known some gifted artists. Artists who, when they apply themselves,
create works of art that easily rival anything I’ve seen online with
hundreds of thousands of views. But they don’t get those views.
They don’t get much of anything, really.
Why does that happen?
It comes down to two things: lack of discipline and/or lack of
consistency, which are two sides of the same coin.
You're unlikely to be consistent if you’re not disciplined—if you
can’t overcome discomfort and hold yourself accountable, you’ll
struggle to keep yourself on track. Conversely, if you aren’t
consistent then it’s difficult to be disciplined because you keep
changing focus.
While talent and skill certainly play a role in success, and in
overcoming inertia through sheer confidence, they’re not enough to
help us build a habit.
Instead, we need to maintain ourselves.
Discipline comes from accountability. There’s a
great Diary of a CEO episode
on this with an expert in the subject, Ryan Holiday, that I strongly
recommend if you can spare the 90 minutes.
Your ability to stay disciplined comes from holding yourself to your
own goals, values, and expectations. If you identify as an early riser,
you’re way more likely to get up early. Similarly, if you snooze your
alarm every morning and sleep in, you’re not holding yourself
accountable to your ideals and will slip from them.
Some would suggest an action as simple as making your bed in the
morning makes you significantly more likely to stay accountable and
get things done throughout the day. I’ve personally found success with
this, but not enough to peddle it here. Feel free to try it out for
yourself and see how it feels.
Instead, focus your attention on your actions and make sure they
match your intentions.
If you can do that, you can stay consistent. Consistency arises from
a desire to repeatedly do a task, or at least achieve the outcome by
working diligently on that task and sticking to it. If you keep
yourself accountable, you’ll stay in the pocket of your goal and are
thus significantly more likely to accomplish it.
Sticking
To The Plan
There it is. That's the formula to overcome inertia and get rolling
with new hobbies and goals.
Let's recap each step just briefly for memory's sake before I say
goodbye:
Set realistic, achievable goals to strive towards
Take the first step to avoid inaction and paralysis
Get used to repeating that step, get comfortable, and find flow
Build the habit with consistency and discipline
Achieve your goals and build confidence
When reading through this it might seem like a lot, and in a sense
it can get rather complex, but it doesn't have to for you to achieve
your goals. Building a habit can be fun, and it's always a learning
experience. Embrace the journey, and you'll do just fine.
See, a lot of the process happens automatically if you’re heading down the
right path. It’s built into who we are as humans. If you haven’t
formed any habits already, then you’re also not brushing your teeth
or taking care of yourself in other ways, which seems more important anyway.
Your body knows what to do. It’s designed to build habits, from your
nervous system to your muscles, and especially your brain.
A lot of the processing our brain does in a day is due to habits, or
heuristics, that help us get through the day without succumbing to
information overload. Especially in the modern world, with
information at our fingertips.
Remember, consistency is worth more than anything at this step. Even
if you don’t feel proud of your accomplishments, keep trying.
You’ll be amazed how far sticking to a goal will get you over time.
You'll get there!
Good luck building your habits, and I’ll see you next time.