The Small-Habits Strategy: What Matters Is Consistent Action

The strength of a small-habits system is that it's easy to apply and turns your mindset in a positive direction. 

Built into it is a virtuous cycle. Because it's easy, you keep doing it; and as small actions harden into habits, positive changes take place in your life, which makes you do it more. 

It also has the benefit of naturally raising self-efficacy and letting trivial actions settle into habits. In short, it's a simple but powerful system that supports people in a refined and clever way. (p.43)

 

 

Two-thirds of January 2015 has already slipped by. Are you keeping the New Year's plans you made at the turn of the year? If not, the author's "small-habits strategy" might be worth a look.

 

The "small-habits strategy" is a strategy of forcing yourself to perform a tiny, positive action every day. 

A "small habit" here means the minimum version of a new habit you want to build. 

For example, 

"100 push-ups a day" can be shrunk to "one push-up a day." 

"Write five A4 pages every day" can be reduced to "write two or three lines every day." 

"Always live positively" can become "think positively twice a day," 

and "live with an innovative entrepreneurial spirit" can become "come up with two ideas a day."

 

The author explains that this small-habits strategy uses a little bit of willpower to force you to follow through. 

Doing one push-up or coming up with two ideas doesn't take much willpower. 

But once you hit that small target, the chance you'll do more goes up. And the chance that action becomes a fixed routine goes up too. The point is that a small goal can turn into a small habit. 

And once an action hardens into a small habit, that habit can keep growing and expanding.

 

If your 2015 New Year's goal was "100 push-ups a day" but you gave up after a few days, try the author's advice and shrink it to "one push-up a day." If it was "write five A4 pages every day," minimize it to "write two lines on A4 every day."

 

What matters for us is 

to act consistently and build it into a "good habit."