The Magic of Tiny Habits I Wish I Knew Years Ago

Tiny habits really mean a lot

Sometimes viewing social media posts first thing in the morning can deflate your mood. Especially if you have friends who are fitness freaks.

John completed a 12 km run and posted on Strava.

Cathy did a 5km jog.

Mike reached his 10,000 steps goal.

I only woke up people. Take it easy guys, you are making me look bad. And unfit for that matter. Sigh! Sometimes, I think they do these physical exercises to only post them on Facebook.

I’m only doing this so I can post about it on Facebook.

I had tried to hop on the fitness morning routine. Failed terribly. Day 1 went well but I couldn’t get up on day 2. When you run for 1km, your heart pumps hard and you begin seeing things. It simply tells you to either stop whatever you are doing or it will.

The failed consistency gets to you sometimes. Especially when your buds can do 12km while all you can do is toss and turn in bed.

So, a few months back I was determined to change this narrative. To at least show that I could begin something and stick to it. Though at the back of my mind, I was really interested in proving a point to John. He likes poking fun at me for my lack of physical activity. Get that John!

Seneca says that we suffer more in imagination than in reality. True to it, I had suffered long enough.

My Desired Outcome

My desired outcome was to begin a new behaviour of physical exercise and hit two birds with one stone. Improving my health and proving a point to my friends.

However, I started it all wrong. I focused on the outcome rather than the behaviour that I ought to integrate into my life.

When you design your life for an intended outcome, say reduce weight. It never works out. You will be incessantly checking your weight every minute and crying silently when you notice that you added an extra kilo.

Sigh! This weight loss journey.

Challenges

My main challenge was sustaining a new behaviour. It’s one day being excited and ready to run and deciding to sleep the next day. Consistency is hard sometimes.

Mark Bouton, a researcher from the University of Vermont says;

Changing behaviour can be an inherently unstable and unsteady process; frequent lapses should be expected.

We all suffer from the same problem. This boat of inconsistency in sustaining new behaviour and transforming our lives by embracing new habits.

In my case, I was unable to find the motivation to get up every other day. Sometimes it was the weather — too hot or too cold. In other cases, I determined that I had worked hard enough and decided to sleep in.

Success

Today, I can confidently say that I went from 0 to 2.12km jogging early in the morning.

Not to brag, but this is where we clap slowly. Diana at the back I can see you.

The purpose of this article is to share some tips on how we can embrace small changes in our lives to achieve the outcomes that we desire. For me, my outcome was a morning routine that was active with a bit of physical exercise.

How did I do it?

I will break it down easily for you.

The Power of Tiny Habits

I read two interesting books about behaviour change that transformed my ideology on why tiny habits matter. Side note, when you feel that you can’t do something, try reading and learning from experts.

#1. Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg

This book transformed my idea about how to change behaviour. Fogg says that there are two ways we can change our habits.

1. Change your environment.
2. Make the habit tiny enough.

I enjoyed the book as it teaches how we can achieve desired outcomes by embracing tiny habits. First, we need to break down our objectives into very small activities that we can begin doing.

If it is weight loss, we can break it down into habits that will lead to the intended outcome. Say for instance,

1. Eat less fast food.
2. Walk in the morning.

Fogg says that we need to make sure that our habits are tiny and easy enough that we can do them automatically. Sort of how children are trained to maintain hygiene by washing their hands before meals.

The book also emphasizes the sequence of behaviour change.

1. Motivation — you need to want to change the negative behaviour
2. Trigger — something that initiates the new habit
3. Ability — the ability to do this new habit

I learned that how we can embrace new behaviour is by synchronizing it with another existing behaviour. As a result, this reinforces our new habit and makes it very easy to do.

To illustrate, this was my previous morning routine that made me unhealthy.

1. Wake up
2. Scroll social media posts
3. Freshen up as I listen to some music
4. Begin working

However, following Fogg’s advice, I broke down my new outcome into tiny habits and added them right after my current behaviour to add momentum. This became my new routine.

1. Wake up
2. Scroll social media posts
3. Get outside for a short jog
4. Freshen up as I listen to some music
5. Begin working

I observed that finishing scrolling on social media was a trigger to get outside and begin jogging. Fogg reminds us;

Plant a seed in the right spot and it will grow without coaxing.

Fogg’s book shows us that if we plant new tiny habits right after our regular behaviours and make them easy enough to do, they slowly grow into our routine and we will eventually change our life.

This is the sequence to follow;

1. Find out what you want to change in your life
2. Break it down into small bits
3. Place the new habit after something you do regularly
4. Let his new habit be very easy to do
5. You will eventually change your life through the new behaviour.

#2. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

Atomic Habits By James Clear reinforces the same idea. To make a change in our habits, we need to embrace behaviour that has four characteristics;

1. Obvious
2. Easy
3. Attractive
4. Satisfying

Clear talks about a starting ritual. Something we can do as a sequence to motivate our new habits. A simple example is how we wash our hands right after flushing the toilet.

We need to learn how to use our old habits to build the momentum necessary to do the new habit.

Concluding thought

Perhaps you are struggling with bad behaviour and it is affecting your mood and temperament. Break it down into a small habit and align it next to your current behaviour to see real change in your life.