This article will walk you through how to build good habits and stick to them.
I have been working on building good habits since I graduated from college and started my professional career. With the hype of ‘IT Girl’, ‘75 days hard’, and ‘just do it’ culture, it can be intimidating to figure out where to begin as these transformation challenges feel like an all or nothing commitment. In this article, I highlight 7 ways that helped me in starting good habits that stick.
- Start with Small Habits
Do you want to read more books in 2024? Become a scholar in Greek mythology through reading? Even scholars started somewhere. One key part in building good habits is starting small. Start with reading 10 pages a day. (Huh? Just 10 pages? That will get me nowhere). Okay, stay with me here. If we assume there are 300 pages per book, this would mean you are reading 1 book per month or 12 books per year. That, to me at least, is clear progress. Make sure your habits are not overwhelming. Trick your future self into thinking these are very simple habits that won’t take too long from your day. With time, like all good things, results will compound and you WILL BECOME A SCHOLAR IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY.
- Take a Macro View When Evaluating Your Progress
Let’s say you are five days into your new reading habit, you read 40 pages and earlier in the day you had this clear goal of making it to 50, but you had an exhausting day at work and all you want to do is sleep. And you do that, you sleep and wake up the next day feeling bad about not reading your 10 pages. In this situation, you have two options: 1. Be really hard on yourself about missing the day and tell yourself you’ll start again next week 2. Just read your 10 pages on the next day and continue your goal towards becoming a Greek mythology scholar. We all have a tendency, to some extent, to follow the first option. Start again another week. The issue with picking this option is the cycle doesn’t end. Every time you skip a day, you’ll start again, lose momentum, and feel bad about yourself. But if you pick the second route, where you continue right where you left as soon as possible, then you have set yourself for a path of flexibility and self-compassion. The good habit that you are trying to build isn’t meant to be a one week long commitment, or even a year. Ultimately, the goal is this is something you continue doing consistently in your life. If we plot your progress across the span of 5 years, a day or two here and there won’t show up on the graph. Make sure you are looking at your habits in a macro view to help build good habits.
- Prioritize Your Habits
I know I know I know. We all want to read 50 books, visit 3 new countries, lose 20lbs, save money, build a business – all in one year. I also want to do that, but you know what’s crazy? Me in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 also wanted to do that. Sounds painfully familiar? (ah, yes, indeed). I spent a good chunk of time reflecting on why I end up in the same situation each year and the clear answer is I need to prioritize my goals. I can’t give 5% to each goal, rotate between them, and see meaningful progress. But if you commit to one habit for a period of time, see that you have reached a good stage, and then start a new habit – that’s when you’ll see the progress kick in.
- Good Habits Have a Ripple Effect
My most productive days are when I don’t use my phone in the morning. I wake up, follow my morning routine, get my tasks done, and feel as if I can conquer the world when it’s only 11am. There is so much time left in the day that I can use for whatever I want: going out, spending time with family/friends, watching TV – I don’t feel bad about relaxing and I don’t beat myself up for not finishing my tasks. Do you know why that’s the case? This boils down to how showing up to our commitments helps in building self-confidence. We are confident in ourselves because we did the thing we said we are going to do, and we feel energized to start the new habit. This might seem silly but in order to build good habits you need to build confidence and trust in yourself. If a friend constantly makes promises and doesn’t maintain them, you will lose your trust in them. The same is true for yourself.
- Intentionally Allocate Time for Your Habits
Our time is one of the most valuable things we have. You can buy many things but you can’t buy time and that’s why it’s critical that you make sure you block time for your new habits, especially when it’s in its budding period. One of the really helpful tricks I learned about habits is stacking them (taken from the book Atomic Habits, one of the few self-help books I ever found helpful and tactical). Building on an existing solid habits foundation is a great way to build good habits.
- Stay Away from Perfection
I am very guilty of this one. If something isn’t exactly like how I want it, it’s hard for me to admit there is any progress or success. For example, if I said I am going to write 500 words tonight and I don’t have time for it (I might have time for only 200 words) then I won’t do it and I would say that’s a failure. This doesn’t work. The issue isn’t really with you, but it’s just a lack of estimation. You thought you were going to write 500 words so reflect on why that didn’t happen. Was that too big of a goal? Did you have a lot of other things going on? Did an unexpected task pop up that stopped you from finishing your initial goal? At the end of the day, something blocked you from finishing your goal/habit. It’s not because you are lazy or uncapable, it’s a problem of time allocation, energy, and resources. Reflecting on why things go bad (without blaming yourself) and focusing on fixing them can go a long way!
- Use Habit Trackers & Planners
I slightly winced when I wrote this one. I have conflicting feelings about trackers and planners. On one end, I LOVE THEM. There are few things that excite me more than sitting with my planner on a reset Sunday to envision my upcoming week and plans. There are many possibilities to how the week can go and what I can achieve in it. On the other hand, it’s busy work. If you spend 30 minutes trying to plan out your perfect week, you could have used this time to work on the habit you are building. That being said, I do think that there is a value to sitting down and being intentional with your work and habits.
As long as you limit how much time you spend on creating the habit tracker, it will be a valuable tool! Some of my favorite habit tracker tools include ✨ good old excel ✨ and Notion.
I hope this post was helpful! If there are any other topics around good habits, health, and wellness you would like to read about, my door (or in this case my e-door) is open so let me know!
As always – live and let live,
The Pacifist Economist