Just as trying to make the one right and perfect choice is a hopeless task that’s likely to leave you mildly dissatisfied at best and exhausted, confused, and depressed at worst, there’s probably no one right and perfect way to change or begin habits. I’m a big fan of Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) because his ideas make sense, are backed by research, and they work (I’ve used them). The more you know about how the habit loop works, the better your chances are of succeeding in having the habits you want and not having the habits you don’t want.
Another idea, however, is to make very, very small changes. This idea is explained by Leo Babauta in his blog Zen Habits:
Actually doing the habit is much more important than how much you do.
If you want to exercise, it’s more important that you actually do the exercise on a regular basis, rather than doing enough to get a benefit right away. Sure, maybe you need 30 minutes of exercise to see some fitness improvements, but try doing 30 minutes a day for two weeks. See how far you get, if you haven’t been exercising regularly. Then, if you don’t succeed, try 1-2 minutes a day. See how far you get there.
If you can do two weeks of 1-2 minutes of exercise, you have a strong foundation for a habit. Add another week or two, and the habit is almost ingrained. Once the habit is strong, you can add a few minutes here and there. Soon you’ll be doing 30 minutes on a regular basis — but you started out really small….
Your mileage will vary, but on average most people get farther with a habit when they start small. One glass of water a day. One extra vegetable. Three pushups. One sentence of writing a day. Two minutes of meditation. This is how you start a habit that lasts.
I think this method can work if you’re especially resistant to doing something or if you tend to overreach, fail, give up–and repeat the cycle.
But sometimes there’s a greater urgency to the situation. You don’t have time to go slow and small. You need to change and you need to do it now. When you recognize and accept the urgency, you may be surprised at how quickly you can change your habits. But that’s the key: recognizing and accepting the need to change, to either start doing something you weren’t doing or start doing something differently.
So rather than trying to figure out the best way to start or change a habit–any habit–you may first need to clarify some other things, such as how important this particular thing is to you, how urgent it is to deal with, what your past experience (if any) has been with it, and what your own personal inclinations and tendencies are. Then use that criteria to select a habit-starting or habit-changing method.
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