Once I discovered the world of personal development and self-improvement a unique problem started plaguing me. It was as if I had discovered a giant candy store with all sorts of assorted candies each looking more attractive than the last. In addition, the store seemed endless and I would discover a different type of delicious candy every day and would drop the candy I was eating, before I finished it, to run to the next one to get a taste of that. Since I had now realized that one could consciously improve any area of one’s life and get better results, I wanted to improve several areas of my life and I wanted to do it all at the same time. One day, I would be watching a video on fitness and would write out a plan to achieve a certain goal that I wanted. I would continue to adhere to that plan for a few days or a few weeks and then I would come across a book on finance and would get fascinated by that and would start looking for ways to put what the author wrote in that book into practice. I would start planning how to get that done and in my enthusiasm about discovering this new hack for improving my personal finances, I would ignore the exercise regimen I had planned to carry out a few weeks or days ago. As a result a year or so into my journey of self-improvement, I had several books that I had bought and read to varying degrees but had not finished, strewn around on my desk, several word documents on my computer of plans I had written out to improve my fitness, my finances, social skills etc. which sat all but forgotten. Due to this, though I had seen some positive changes in all these aspects of my life, I had not had big breakthroughs or real progress in any area.
I was lacking consistency, which is the essential ingredient to success in any area of life. I was aware of my problem, but I just could not find a way to fix it. I had all these great tools at my disposal but I was not able to develop the discipline to put in the work needed over long periods of time to see real progress. I would be motivated on certain days and on other days I just would not be in the mood to do what I had planned and instead of not doing anything, I would make myself feel good by watching some other video about personal development or engaging in some other activity that was beneficial so I could still feel that I did something productive. I had become a self-improvement junkie! Always looking to get my fix by trying to find some new book or some new video which would give me more information. While indulging in this pattern, I came across a book called “Mini Habits” by Stephen Guise. It was a small book that presented a quite radically different approach to develop discipline and ensure that we carry out our various projects to fruition. One of the crucial points that the book made early on that resonated with me was that relying on motivation to do something was a very bad and unreliable strategy. Motivation is extremely fleeting. One day, we are motivated and the next day we are not, so relying on motivation to do something leads to a high level of inconsistency. Instead the book suggested that relying on willpower would enable us to take consistent action leading to the development of habits which would then automatically lead us to our long term goals.
However, the only problem with willpower is that willpower is limited and the more we use it the more it gets depleted. There are many factors which affect willpower and one of which is the degree of effort required to complete a task. If the task ahead of us is a 1 hour workout sometimes we just do not have the willpower required to power through and complete it. So what do we do? We don’t even start!! But if the task that is required to be completed is just 1 push-up we definitely have the willpower to complete it. The mini habit system takes advantage of this in order to ensure that we never not complete our actions. In essence a mini habit is “a VERY small positive behavior that you force yourself to do every day”. The magic of this method is that once you actually get into position to do 1 push-up you are inevitably going to end up doing more than one as doing just one would be ”stupid”. But on the days when you just do not have the time or are facing huge resistance, you could still do just the one push-up and ensure that you have at least taken a small positive action towards your goal. Consistency is the primary focus of the mini-habit system. Having big ambitions or big goals end up being worthless if we do not take action to achieve them. In fact sometimes the fact that we have set ourselves a big target is what prevents us from taking action when we are not feeling like it. It’s just too much to handle. But with this system the primary requirement is to have a goal that is not just small but “stupid small”! Something that would be near impossible not to do.
Stupid small targets would be doing 1 push-up per day, studying 2 minutes per day, meditating for 30 seconds per day, taking 3 deep conscious breaths per day and so on depending on the habit that we are trying to build. Of course, these are minimum requirements and we are free to do more of these activities as there is no upper limit. But we have to ensure that regardless of how much of the activity we do on a given day, we are going to complete the minimum requirement the next day and every following day after that. There are no days off! As the goal we have set ourselves is stupid small, we will always have the willpower regardless of our energy levels and our mental state to complete it and more often than not we end up doing more than the minimum requirement as once we start something it is always more easier to do more of it. Since resistance is the highest before starting the activity, we trick our brains to start the activity by setting a very small target. To be honest, when I first read the book I was quite skeptical about this strategy. It just felt very stupid and weak to have such a small goal. I believed that success was achieved by setting big gigantic and inspiring goals and then heroically struggling to achieve them. However, up until then this notion of mine about how success is achieved had not really gotten me much success so I decided to give it a shot.
At that point I was struggling to maintain consistency in my workouts and in my reading habits. I would work out very hard for a few weeks and then slack off for long periods. I would buy a book and start reading it with a lot of enthusiasm and then one day something else would catch my fancy and the book would be abandoned half read. So I decided to apply the mini habit strategy to both these areas of my life. My mini habits were to do at least 1 push up everyday day and to read at least one sentence of the particular book I had chosen to read every day. In the beginning I did just 1 push up on many days, but slowly this started to change and soon I was doing 25-30 push ups every day. I then came across a weightlifting program that would help me get stronger and put on muscle. Since I had always been skinny, this is something I really wanted to do. But the program involved hitting the gym and lifting weights just 3 times a week so as to allow for enough rest in between for the body to recover. The flexibility of the mini habit system allowed me to easily tweak my habits. Now my routine was to either go to the gym and do the program or do at least 1 push up every day. So I ended up going to the gym 3 days a week and doing 1 or more push-ups on the other days. Even when I missed going to the gym I could still keep my streak going by doing my push-ups at home. I managed to put on 10 kilograms and for the first time in my life got bulky and muscular enough for people to notice! The mini habit system had worked. As far as my reading is concerned, I managed to read 14 books this year whereas in 2019 I had managed to read just 5 books fully though I had begun reading around 12 of them but stopped without completing them.
The New Year is around the corner and after the massive positive impact that mini habits have brought about in my life I am busy setting up my mini habits for 2021. So instead of setting New Year’s resolutions like every year, set your mini habits for 2021 and see if this amazing system works for you!
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