The power of habits to achieve a goal

I’m pretty sure this doesn’t count as copyright if you all go buy the book now. Right? Going with it!

If there is one book that has recently taken the world by storm, it is Atomic Habits by James Clear. Everyone on your Instagram seems to be reading it and tweet-storming it. And when you ask if they are enjoying it, everyone says “yes – there is nothing super new or ground-breaking, but it’s just how he lays the concepts out that makes it so tangible and actionable and real”.

Ironically, this is a great metaphor for habits. Well-thought-out habits can make a big, scary-ass goal feel tangible, and attainable, and real.

I’m not going to give you a book report or all the key points of the book. You can read it, or find that on your own. Instead, I’m going to share with you some of the tools you can use to achieve your own goals using habits.

Let’s start with an example of a goal. Your goal is to run 5km in 30 min, within 6 weeks. You can currently jog/walk about 4.5km in the same time.

First of all, great! Good for you, setting yourself a goal, and saying it out loud. It’s specific, and has a deadline, and is about a 10% improvement on what you can already do, so it seems attainable. 

But now the question is – HOW? What is your PLAN to achieve that goal? Because news flash – you probably won’t wake up in 6 weeks and magically be a better runner, unless you are working on it.

The answer lies within your habits. If you want to be a better writer, you have to write more. If you want to be a better sleeper, you have to sleep more. If you want to do better push-ups, you have to work on your push-ups more. And if you want to be a better runner, you have to run more. 

So you could just say “okay, I’m going to run 3x/week”, or everyday, or whatever. Buuuut… that opens up a lot of potential issues:

• What happens when you wake up one day and don’t feel like running?

• What happens the day you get busy and forget to run, until it’s too late?

• What happens when it snows outside, or it’s too windy?

• What happens if you wake up and your knees or back or hips ache?

If you’re anything like me, you “fall off the wagon” accidentally at first, but then you feel like a bit of a failure, so you just decide to quit, rather than crawl back up again. Because it’s all over, anyway….right? 

WRONG!

This is where the power of habits comes in. The easier you can make something for yourself, the more automatic it becomes, and the fewer brain cells it requires. Think about getting ready for bed – you don’t have to think about putting on your PJ’s and brushing your teeth – you just do it. Or maybe you are the same way about 6am workouts (when Crush is open!), or making your morning smoothie, or reviewing your schedule for the week. These are all positive habits that help to build your identity as a healthy, capable, organized human being.

According to James Clear, you want to make a habit Obvious, Attractive, Easy, and Satisfying to do it more.

So, using this framework, let’s look at a new habit: Every morning, after I brush my teeth and before I make my coffee, I’m going to go for a run or walk or stretch outside for 30 minutes.

The idea around habit shaping is that you can progressively make habits harder as you get more competent! But start by making it pretty easy, to build your momentum!

Make it obvious: This is where James talks about “habit stacking” and “visual cues”. Stack the new habit with something you already do (ie brush your teeth, and make coffee). You are going to leave your running shoes by the coffee maker, so you literally have to trip over them, and your tights and headphones on the couch so you don’t have to pick them out of your laundry basket or wake your spouse up. 

Make it attractive: you are going to listen to your favourite playlist or podcast or audio book or radio show, and after you are going to have a hot shower and a hot cup of coffee

Make it easy: The habit should be a bit of a challenge, but not SUPER hard – just enough to stretch you and keep you from getting bored, and remember that you can scale and tweak it as you improve (see the screen shot for examples) So how does this work in our example? It’s in your promise to yourself – you can run OR walk OR stretch outside every day, even if you are tired, even if it is cold. So do it! Chances are, once your favourite song is on and your runners are on and your quads and stretched out, you’ll feel like jogging a bit, anyway ;-)

Make it satisfying: This is where trackers come in! Put a calendar or your fridge and cross it off each day, or use Strava to track your distance and try to hit 30KM each week! Or use the Facebook group and share your daily movement. Or text your accountability buddy (and check in with them, too!)

Here are some other examples of habits that lead to achieving goals:

• Goal - Habit

• Improve your quality of sleep - Use your iPhone do not disturb timer to shut all your apps down every night at 9pm

• Read 3 books - Read 15 minutes every evening right after you brush your teeth

• Write a book - Write for 15 minutes every evening right after you brush your teeth

• Be able to run without knee pain - Roll your hips and quads for 10 minutes every evening

• Get better at push-ups or planks - Do as many as you can in 2 minutes ever night before bed

• Feel more organized - write down your big-rocks and could-do list every Sunday evening

• Spend less money eating out - pack your lunch before you eat dinner each evening

• Feel less overwhelmed and more accomplished - Every evening, write down 3 “wins” or things you accomplished that day (a personal fave of mine!) 

In conclusion, I’m going to shamelessly borrow a paragraph from the conclusion of Atomic Habits, with full thank you to Mr Clear, and acknowledgement that I am probably going to help him sell some books (who knows how to set up an affiliate link LOL!)

“The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1 percent improvement, but a thousand of them. It’s a bunch of atomic habits stacking up, each one a fundamental unit of the overall system.

In the beginning, small improvements can often seem meaningless because they get washed away by the weight of the system. Just as one coin won’t make you rich, one positive change like meditating for one minute or reading one page each day is unlikely to deliver a noticeable difference. 

Gradually, though, as you continue to layer small changes on top of one another, the scales of life start to move. Each improvement is like adding a grain of sand to the positive side of the scale, slowly tilting things in your favor. Eventually, if you stick with it, you hit a tipping point. Suddenly, it feels easier to stick with good habits. The weight of the system is working for you rather than against you.

(Atomic Habits page 251-252)

Just like working out regularly was once a challenge, and now feels as natural as breathing, so too will running, or writing, or sleeping better. Just take it one step at a time.