Forget willpower. When building habits, choose 1 of these 8 strategies instead
You want to build a new routine or habit. You want to incorporate some behaviour change you believe will make your life better in some way.
Let me guess: You decided last night, when you were laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, that your day would be so much more productive if you did not look at your cell phone for the first hour of your day. You decided that first hour would be better spent on yoga, meditating, exercising, journaling or breathing; probably all of the above.
You finally fall asleep feeling satisfied with your resolve and then, what’s the first thing you do in the morning? Spend an hour responding to emails and scrolling through Instagram on your phone, completely forgetting your resolve until half way through your day. When you do remember, you feel terrible about yourself: “I didn’t even make it through day one! Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be better.”
You believe if you just have enough will power, you will be able to change your behaviour. Yeah. I see you over there. I see you because I do it too!
The truth of it is that very few of us have will power. Thinking you do leads to a lot of self-flagellation. Aka beating up on yourself because you don’t stick to what you said you wanted to. Your resolve to ‘be better’ quickly becomes yet another way you can beat up on yourself for not being good enough. (Or whatever your worthiness story is. ‘Not good enough’ is mine.)
I am taking the stick out of your hand on this one: It’s not your fault. Very few people have enough will power to muster behaviour change. And quite honestly, I don’t know who these ‘few’ are, because I have never met anyone who could change their own behaviour through sheer will power.
Think about it for a sec: If will power is all it takes to change our behaviour to become the people we want to be, why aren’t we those people?!
But don’t despair! If you are looking to build a new routine or habit, here are 8 things you CAN do. Any one of them will be more effective than relying on your will power alone. And they all work together to reinforce the behaviour change you want to make. So the more you use, the more you increase your likelihood of successfully building that new habit!
I believe you can do this! Just please: drop the expectation that will power will help you get there.
1.Start with what’s already working and reinforce it. We humans are more inclined to focus on what’s not working. It’s how we’re wired. We’re experts at pointing out the problems. It takes concentrated effort to look for what’s actually going well. Make a point of noticing what is actually going well and do more of that.
2. Layer habits on habits. One of my habits was working out and then going in the sauna after. I wanted to build a habit of daily meditation. I began listening to a 10 minute meditation while I was in the sauna. I layered the new habit on top of something I was already doing to reduce the effort required to do it. Attaching new habits to existing habits increases the likelihood you will successfully adopt it, because you aren’t completely starting from scratch.
3. Know what you are trying to accomplish. Your life is more than just a collection of habits. The intention of your habits is (hopefully) to serve a larger purpose. Whether that is to make you feel good; sustain you to bring your creative genius self to the world; or live your values in some other way. When you know what you’re trying to accomplish with a particular habit or routine, you can see many avenues to get there. For example, if I want to move the stagnant energy out of my body, I might go for a run; or I could turn on some music that tickles my insides and dance around my kitchen; or I could sit cross legged and chant a fire meditation. Basically, there are many paths to get to the same outcome. We get really focused on the habit ie; I must run every day.
Having a sense of what you are trying to accomplish, allows you to consider multiple ways to get there; and maybe you will discover an avenue that accomplishes the same purpose but is more enjoyable.
4. Take an experimental approach. If you’re a venture capitalist, you don’t dump all your resources into the first idea that comes along. You spend a little bit of time resourcing many things to test what gives you the most return on your investment. Then you scale what works. Use this same thinking when you’re building routines and habits. Just because an hour of meditation every morning and evening works for Jay Shetty, doesn’t mean it will work the same for you - and that’s totally okay! Try these steps to think like a venture capitalist when it comes to your habits and routines:
Set a timeline. A week is usually a good place to start.
Define the parameters of your experiment. Choose ONE thing to focus on and try doing that every day for one week. Are you going to stop looking at social media for the last hour before bed?
Take action for that one week.
Reflect. Were you able to follow through on the parameters for the timeline you set? Did it accomplish what you wanted it to? Does your life feel different?
Try different things. Remember when we said above: there are many paths to the same outcome?
Throw out what doesn’t work. Stop beating yourself up about not completing the 90-day workout challenge: it didn’t work for you at this time. Maybe it will work for future you, but it’s not working now. Stop wasting your energy beating on yourself for not following through. Just THROW IT OUT. You don’t need an explanation. Move on.
Try something else. When you find something that works, then put your energy into reinforcing it.
Test different things with a curious mind and without getting too attached to the outcome. Don’t hesitate to throw it out if it doesn’t work for you and move on to find something that does.
If I could get you to abandon 80% of the ideas you have about what you THINK would make your life better, that would be a massive win. Imagine how free you would feel without all that pressure?!
5. Put ‘it’ in your way. Schedule the activity in your calendar. (If you look at your calendar!) Put a sticky note on the back of your phone to remind yourself not to look at it for an hour. Put your vitamin bottle on top of the coffee grinder so you have to move it to make your coffee, if you are trying to take your vitamins every day. Figure out a way to literally trip over the new habit you are trying to build. I get this is totally anti-Marie Kondo, but if this habit is truly life changing magic for you, it’d be even better than tidying up!
6. Tiny changes have big impact. It’s normal you want to change everything at once. Resist the urge. What’s the tiniest tweak you can make? You will be more likely to stick with it. And anything you stick with will have a bigger impact than anything you don’t.
For one client, it turned out building the habit of reviewing her calendar for the following day before brushing her teeth at night, was the tiniest tweak we could implement to help her feel less rushed, more prepared, and focusing on activities and interactions that mattered for the projects she was leading. Her anxiety about feeling behind all the time was reduced, because even if she was physically late walking into a meeting, she was mentally prepared for what was coming.
7. Stop doing. Make space. Time is finite. Continuing to add is a recipe for overwhelm and burnout. Most of us are already doing way too much and then we ADD habits and routines with the expectation of increasing our productivity. Yikes!
HOT TIP: Do less of what feels like a chore. Do more of what feels good. If this new routine or habit doesn’t make you feel good. Refer to step three. What are you doing this for? Because Rachel Hollis says you should? And she made millions? Who cares? She did it her way. You do it yours. And I bet you will be even more successful.
8. Don’t take your attention away from the behaviour change. Building routines and habits takes way longer than you think it will. It takes 66 days to build a habit. That’s in a lab with a research assistant reminding you every day to do the thing! It takes even longer out in the world with competing commitments. Give yourself the grace. It takes time. Don’t lift your focus. Don’t stop putting it in your way. You will be successful.
Reflection Questions
What habit or routine are you trying to build in your life?
How do you anticipate these habits or routines will make your life better? How do you expect to feel by adopting them?
What strategies have you used that have worked for you?
Comment below!