Day 3–100 Days Being Visible
Stack habits for success
If getting started is the hardest part of a project, then I reckon keeping going when the ‘going gets tough’ is a close second.
Today I decided that my most important task was to create a plan that would help me get through the tough-going when it comes.
I plan to establish writing my daily blog as a habit.
I know I know how to do this because I have established two significant new habits in the past twelve months. Last April, following our (Canberra, Australia) short COVID lockdown, I started attending an early morning gym class. Each weekday evening, I set out my gym clothes in the bathroom; in the morning, I woke with my alarm, put on my shorts and t-shirt, made a cup of tea, and drove to the gym.
In June, when I enrolled in a year-long training program to further develop my leadership coaching skills, I decided to ‘stack’ my study habit on my gym habit. It seemed a small change to drive to the gym early and study for an hour over coffee before exercising. I have now been exercising and studying in the morning for some six months.
In chaining or stacking my habits, I am following the systems of B J Fogg and James Clear.
BJ Fogg, in his book Tiny Habits claims that to create a new habit:
You have to have the motivation to do it, the ability to do it, and a trigger must occur to remind you to do it.
The trigger I chose for studying was driving to the gym.
James Clear in this article, says:
One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.
My plan to persevere with my 100 days being visible project is to habit stack.
I will stack fifteen to thirty minutes of writing or planning immediately after my coaching study-hour in the morning. I will also stack scheduling additional time for 100-days’ work onto my weekly work planning session.
Progress
Today I have formulated a plan to make it more likely I will persevere with this project. Time will tell, but it seems sound, and I followed it today. I have also started to think of my 100 days project as being like a game. If it is a game then one of my next tasks will be to decide on the rules of the game and the criteria for winning the game.
I am satisfied with my progress.
3/3/100 (Number of days goals met/ number of days into project/ 100)
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