In the quest to improve our health, we often seek to develop new healthy habits, particularly when it comes to exercise. A seldom-performed workout is not going to get you to your fitness goals. Rather, consistency is the key to succeeding with meaningful change.
When it comes to creating a new habit, especially physical activity, we rely too heavily on motivation and willpower to make that activity a habit. Unfortunately, there will always be an excuse for why today is not a good day, or it’s just not a good time to perform the intended activity. It’s no wonder that gyms are busy in the New Year and near-empty by February. Motivation and willpower, in general, are not effective.
There’s a commonly-preached myth that it takes 21 days to develop a habit. Research claims that it takes 66 days to build a habit, ranging from 18 to 254 days.
Nonsense.
If properly designed, a new habit can take foot immediately. Here’s a strategy adapted from the book Tiny Habits, by B.J. Fogg.
Tiny Habits
The general principle is to perform a simple activity in response to a trigger, then celebrate.
- Anchor moment
- Tiny behavior
- Celebrate
Anchor Moment
The trigger must be a very specific event. It cannot be poorly defined, lest it will not be an effective prompt. For the habit that I created, the trigger event is “when I pull the shower faucet handle away from the wall”. At that instant, there is an unmistakable “clunk” that serves as my very specific prompt. It’s not “in the morning” or “when I shower” – those are too vague. My trigger event is a very discrete event that cannot be mistaken.
Pick a prompt that occurs at an appropriate frequency for your intended activity. If your prompt is “when my doorbell rings”, you may go weeks without performing the activity. If your prompt occurs too often, e.g. “when I receive a text message”, you may be unable to keep up with the activity and it will lose importance. Or, just create your own prompt by setting an alarm with a distinct ringtone at an appropriate frequency.
Tiny Behavior
The simple activity that is intended to follow must, in fact, be simple. The reason for this is that the chosen activity must be something that you always perform in response to the trigger event – there’s never a reason not to perform it. For my habit, the “clunk” of the shower faucet prompts me to perform two (2) pushups. Simple. Performing 2 pushups is by no means a good workout, but that’s not important. The important thing is that I actually DO the 2 pushups, because when I do, I’m generally always going to keep going and perform more than 2. Even on my worst day, I can muster out 2 pushups.
Celebrate
Immediately after performing the intended behavior, give yourself a pat on the back or some positive self-talk to reinforce the behavior. It could be as simple as saying “Good job!” to yourself.
In summary, this is what my tiny habit looks like:
Designing your own Tiny Habit
There are infinite ways to design a tiny habit. It depends, of course, on what behavior[s] you want to incorporate in your life. The activity performed in response to the prompt can be as simple or as complex as you’d like it to be. It could even be a series of activities.
For example, let’s say that you want to build a habit of walking after your evening meal. First, you must pick a very specific anchor moment. Just saying “after dinner” is a weak prompt, because it’s too vague – is it 1 minute after dinner, 4 hours after dinner, etc.? Pick a very discrete prompt. In this case, one option would be “when you press the ‘Start’ button on the dishwasher”. That’s a very well-defined event. There’s no debating when that prompt occurs.
Next, you could design a single tiny behavior or a series of tiny behaviors that follow that prompt, the important thing being that you always perform the behavior immediately after you encounter the prompt. For example, after pressing the start button on the dishwasher, you put on your shoes, grab your keys, grab the dog leash, attach the leash to your dog, and walk to the mailbox. Again, walking to the mailbox is a pitifully small activity, but you don’t have to stop there. You just have to always walk at least to the mailbox, even if you feel too tired or constrained on time to muscle out a longer walk. Sticking to the minimum activity all the time is important for maintaining the habit.
Instant Success
There are infinite options for creating your own tiny habits. As you can see, these habits can become solid, lasting habits just as soon as you design them.
