Step Five: REEVALUATE
Reevaluate after one week. Do you feel burnt out? Do you find yourself easily going beyond your requirement every day? Are you on such a positive powerful roll that you are craving more good habits? If you feel like your willpower can handle an extra mini or two, add it. Be sure to consider your most difficult day and decide whether you can still complete your mini habits on that day. If you can do it on the day you’re tired, stressed and very busy, you can do it every day.
Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.~ Mark Twain
Nothing is stronger than habit.~Ovid
Rules for the Road from Mini Habits by Stephen Guise:
- Never, Ever Cheat. Don’t give yourself a mini habit but secretly require that you do more. You are always allowed extra, but it’s best for that to come from you rather than your requirement. “Expect little and you’ll have the hunger to do more. When you realize how powerful starting is, and that yes, you had plenty of motivation to do these things all along (which was dormant until you started), life gets very exciting.”
- Be happy with all progress. Small steps lead to giant leaps forward in the future.
- Reward yourself often, especially after a Mini. Rewards give back by encouraging you to perform your mini habit again. This strengthens a positive feedback loop.
- Stay calm. A calm mindset is steady and predictable. Excitement about making progress will happen but if it’s a basis for taking action, you are relying on those unpredictable emotions again.
- If you feel strong resistance, back off and go smaller. Burnout is willpower exhaustion which happens when people force themselves to do too much for too long.
- Remind yourself how easy this is. Think about how small the task is, not about whether you have chosen to do extra the day before.
- Never think a step is too small. Small steps may be the only way to move forward when willpower is weak. Learning to love them will yield amazing results.
- Put extra energy and ambition toward bonus reps, not a bigger requirement. “If you’re anxious to make big progress, pour that energy into your bonus reps. Bigger requirements look good on paper, but only action counts. Be the person with embarrassing goals and impressive results instead of one of the many people with impressive goals and embarrassing results.”
Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.~Unknown
Neurological Cravings
Does creating a habit of playing the piano stack up against the challenge of quitting an unhealthy habit like smoking? Of course not. One way to conquer unhealthy habits is to replace them with healthy ones. Figure out what drives the unhealthy habit. What cues or triggers are in place which keep it alive? What habit(s) can stand instead of the unhealthy habit when the triggers show up?
For some habits a replacement strategy alone may not be sufficient and a multi pronged approach will be necessary. Some unhealthy habits are more difficult to eliminate because they are fueled by powerful cravings and may border on or be addictions as well.
Charles Duhigg, Author of The Power of Habit explains:
Countless studies have shown that a cue and a reward, on their own, aren’t enough for a new habit to last. Only when your brain starts expecting the reward— craving the endorphins or sense of accomplishment— will it become automatic to lace up your jogging shoes each morning. The cue, in addition to triggering a routine, must also trigger a craving for the reward to come. Habits create neurological cravings. Most of the time, these cravings emerge so gradually that we’re not really aware they exist, so we’re often blind to their influence. But as we associate cues with certain rewards, a subconscious craving emerges in our brains that starts the habit loop spinning. When a smoker sees a cue— say, a pack of cigarettes— her brain starts anticipating a hit of nicotine. Just the sight of cigarettes is enough for the brain to crave a nicotine rush. If it doesn’t arrive, the craving grows until the smoker reaches, unthinkingly, for a cigarette.
The pre-frontal cortex will have to work very hard to say no to these powerful cravings. Strong support structures will need to be in place to build the creation of replacement strategies, coping mechanisms, belief change, and accountability. As a life coach, I support people with creating a habit change package that works for them.
Leo Babauta offers powerful insights and tips for “quitting the habit” in this excerpt from his February 6, 2014 Zen Habits blog post:
Tried to Quit & It’s too Hard!
It can seem incredibly hard to quit an addiction (smoking, junk food, complaining, etc.) There are several things that stand in our way:
- The physical addiction – this is hard but the actual suffering or withdrawing only lasts a few days. If you really put your mind to it, you can do anything hard for a few days. Tips to help include: being accountable to others, having support to call upon for help, distraction/keeping very busy, creating a supportive, change friendly environment (get rid of cigarettes, sugar & add healthy stuff). Most importantly, “Get good at getting through an urge. An urge isn’t an absolute command. It’s an itch. You can overcome it. Watch the urge, let it rise, and know that it will pass in a minute. Get through it. Then you’re good. Find the strategies that work for you.
- The reliance on it as a coping mechanism – this is a problem because we’re so used to using the addiction as a crutch when we’re stressed or sad or things are difficult or we need to socialize. Fortunately, there are plenty of other healthier ways to cope. Exercise, prayer, meditation, talking to others, connecting with loved ones, expressing gratitude, acknowledging/feeling our feelings, taking action, finding something you’re passionate about are all healthy coping mechanisms.
- You don’t believe you can do it. This is the worst one, because if you give in to this obstacle, the other two are not conquerable. Fortunately, this one is entirely self-caused, and so the solution is entirely within our hands.
You’ve heard of the Little Engine That Could … well, our brains are the opposite. They’re the little engines that think they can’t. And they are amazing at rationalizing why.
Just try giving up something that you rely on. At first, you might start to think,
This isn’t too bad … in fact, I’m kinda excited about it!
But then, when things get a bit difficult, your mind tends to think things like,
This is too hard! I can’t do it! I want to give up!
And then you start to ask,
Why the hell am I doing this to myself? Life is too short to suffer so much.
Then you think,
Just once, one little time, won’t matter. No one will know. One exception won’t hurt anything. It’s the long run that matters.
Except that one exception does hurt. It leads you to the same rationalization the next time (“One more time won’t hurt”) and then in your mind, you’re not quitting anymore.
Our minds get in our way. So what can we do? Well, luckily this is entirely fixable. We just have to
- examine our beliefs, and
- change them.
Yes, our beliefs are changeable. I know because I’ve changed numerous beliefs, and tested those new beliefs with self-experiments, and found the new ones to be true. The old beliefs will be true, too, if you believe them. Experience will bear out the beliefs getting in your way, if you believe them. But experience can prove better beliefs to be true too, if you’re willing to give them a try.
Let’s take some examples of beliefs that stand in our way:
Quitting something can be hard, it’s true. But not quitting them is harder — you have to live with health problems (or other problems) for the rest of your life. That’s years of pain vs. a few days or weeks of struggle.
Each person in each personal circumstance must choose for themselves. For habits to permanently change, people must believe that change is possible. Sometimes change takes a long time. Sometimes it requires repeated experiments and failures. With an understanding of how habit operates, and a commitment to change, people can empower themselves to move forward.
Choose habits wisely. Small changes in our daily routines can lead to big changes in our lives. Which habits help us live the life we want to be living? It’s all about awareness and mindfulness. Habits are the framework of our lives. They are the scaffolding of our days. Choosing which habits to create and which habits to break are very individual decisions and processes.
Habit change can be a very rewarding process, regardless of the outcome. Besides being a way to add something new or healthier to life, habits are tools for selflearning. If one is mindful and paying attention, there is so much to be learned in just a few months of habit change. Habit change teaches us about motivation, selftalk, rationalization, urges, internal vs external rewards, weakness, kindness, progress, and empowerment.
Habit change is a beautiful experiment in personal growth.
Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary.~Uta Hagen
Habit
I am your constant companion
I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure
I am completely at your command
Half of the things you do might as well turn over to me and I will do them – quickly and correctly
I am easily managed- you must be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically.
I am the servant of great people, and alas of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.
I am not a machine though I work with the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a person.
You may run me for profit or run me for ruin- it makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.
Who am I?
I am Habit.~Unknown
Resources
Books
Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by Stephen Guise (2013)
Lasting change for early quitters, burnouts, the unmotivated, and everyone else too.
The Habit Factor: An Innovative Method to Align Habits with Goals to Achieve Success by Martin Grunburg (2010)
At the intersection of Science, Philosophy, Personal Achievement & Spirituality lies The Habit Factor®, an innovative and proven methodology to realize meaningful and significant goals helping you to create your ideal future — your success.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg (2012).
In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed.
21 Power Habits for a Winning Life Volume 2 by Krystal Kuehn
Articles and Blogs
10 Life-Changing Facts About Habits (from A Flourishing Life)
Bad Habits: Why We Can’t Stop (from Life Science) http://www.livescience.com/1191-bad-habits-stop.html
17 Good Habits for a Successful Life (from My Super Charged Life)
Websites
http://minihabits.com/mini-habit-ideas/: master list of mini habits ideas in categories plus much more
http://deepexistence.com/: Improve your life strategies, mini habit inspiration by Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits
www.habitfactor.com: includes a blog with information and inspiration, a get unstuck paid membership area, Q & A, templates, and success stories.
http://zenhabits.net/: Leo Babauta. This website/blog is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness.
Apps
The Habit Factor APP for Iphone: a great support structure for tracking habits, the
key to successful Habit Change according to The Habit Factor.
Lift APP: Coaching, community, data, tracking to help with habits