scott stonehouse

A disclaimer: If you haven’t read Atomic Habits by James Clear and/or Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg, please do. They are incredible books. Although there is overlap in ideas, they approach things a bit differently and, therefore, provide some complementary but unique insights. Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit is also good, but I did not find it as helpful as the other two.

Almost everything I will be sharing in this series of posts comes from these books and my experience implementing their lessons. These posts are my summary and commentary on their fantastic work.

I will write three posts:

Building Habits #1 – The Principles
Building Habits #2 – The Mechanics
Building Habits #3 – The Support Structure

These ideas have been life-changing for me. They can be for you, too.

THE PRINCIPLES

A. IDENTITY

We tend to act out of our sense of identity. The way we see ourselves influences the options we believe are possible and the actions we take.

It is easier to do something that aligns with our identity. It is more difficult to do something that does not align with our identity.

Therefore, there is more value in building habits from the perspective of identity change rather than simply behavior change. James Clear has a helpful graphic in Atomic Habits illustrating this. He calls it Outcome-Based Habits vs. Identity-Based Habits.

This puts our habits in the context of who we are or who we want to be rather than merely something we are doing or want to do.

Each action taken is also a vote, evidence, that we are, or are becoming, the person we want to be. It then becomes easier to continue to do those actions because the type of person we are does those things.

Ultimately, this is the reward of the behavior: to be that type of person. The goal isn’t to practice guitar, but to be a guitar player. It isn’t to write for 30 minutes a day, but to be a writer. Or to run 3 miles, but to be a runner.

Guitar players play, writers write, and runners run. It’s what they do.

The actions and identity reinforce one another.

I believe this is the most important principle. We are building habits to shape our identity and our identity shapes our habits.

B. CONSISTENCY

It isn’t a habit if we do it once. Or do it rarely. It is a habit when we do it consistently.

That is why establishing the habit is the initial goal. It is more important than the “quality” of the action. It doesn’t have to be perfect or even good. It just needs to be done. Something done consistently is better than nothing done perfectly.

That is why doing a crappy version of our habit is better than not doing it at all. It maintains consistency.

Keep doing it.

Consistency is critical.

Consistency is king.

Consistency is convincing. We see another piece of evidence, another vote for our identity. They begin to pile up and it becomes easier and easier to believe that we are the type of person we want to be.

Consistency also compounds. Like compound interest on money grows and grows over time, like a snowball, the effects of our actions compound over time, too, as long as we keep doing them.

Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.

The best way to increase our chances of being consistent with our habit is to make it easy and make it feel good.

C. MAKE IT EASY. MAKE IT FEEL GOOD.

This is going to sound obvious, but the harder something is to do, the less likely we are to do it. The easier something is to do, the more likely we are to do it.

If it is easy enough, we don’t have to rely on discipline, motivation, or self-control, all of which are unreliable and limited resources.

If it is easy enough, we’ll just do it.

Making something easy often means making it really small. Small as in Atomic (Clear). Small as in Tiny (Fogg).

For example, our initial goal isn’t to run, but to put on our running shoes. Our initial goal isn’t to write for an hour, but to write one sentence.

Clear calls this the 2-Minute Rule. The initial habit should take less than two minutes to do. Fogg is even more aggressive and says it should take less than 30 seconds.

The idea is to make it so ridiculously small and easy that we will do it no matter what.

In addition to making it small, making it easy could also mean having the right tools or equipment for the habit (running shoes, a journal, etc.). Or it could mean adjusting our environment (setting out our workout clothes, putting a book on the table, removing the TV, etc.). There are several ways to think about making something easy. Whatever approach we take, the aim is to make it easy.

This builds consistency. This is the goal. Once we have established the habit, then we can enhance the habit. But we have to establish it first and that means make it easy. Ridiculously easy.

The other strategy to help build consistency is to make the action feel good.

If it feels good there is a greater chance we will keep doing it.

Making it feel good could mean that we aren’t pushing ourselves so hard that it doesn’t feel good. It might be as simple as a fist pump and saying, “I did it!” Or it could be the joy that comes from crossing off another day on our calendar in which we did our habit.

Similar to making it easy, there are many ways we can go about making the habit feel good. That is mechanics. The principle, though, is to make it feel good.

If it is easy and feels good, we will keep doing it. Consistency in convincing and will shape our identity.

Identity. Consistency. Make it easy and make it feel good. These are the main principles to follow to successfully build habits.

We will talk about mechanics in the next post, but even if you didn’t have any tips, you could figure it out as long as you followed these principles.

You CAN do this. I know you can.

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