Year after year, I set lofty new year’s resolutions, such as going to the gym 6 times each week, even if I hadn’t been going regularly prior to January. I was often feeling disappointed and ashamed by March. In 2022, I decided to focus on forming daily habits and use a habit tracker (I used the habit tracker found in the Silk&Sonder monthly planners).
Each month, I tracked habits, reflected on which habits were no longer serving me, and sometimes added more habits to strive for. By the end of the year, I was focusing on several daily habits: taking my temperature at 5 a.m. every day for future fertility tracking purposes, reading 22+ minutes each day, listening to a podcast each day, playing brain cognition games on the Lumosity and Elevate apps each day, doing a 10-minute ab workout + 10 pushups each day, 22+ minutes walking/running each day, doing dishes before bed each day, writing in my One Line A Day journal each day, and completing my Silk&Sonder daily affirmation/writing prompt.
Honestly, it was a life-changing year, and although I wasn’t perfect every single month, I managed to complete some habits every single day of 2022: reading 22+ minutes each day, walking/running 22+ minutes each day, listening to a podcast each day, Silk&Sonder daily affirmations, doing dishes before bed each day, and writing in my One Line A Day journal each day. Here is a sample of my habit tracker:
I surprisingly didn’t read Atomic Habits by James Clear until November, and it was very educational and helpful! James Clear is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His website (www.jamesclear.com) receives millions of visitors each month, hundreds of thousands subscribe to his newsletter, and he speaks at Fortune 500 companies and is the creator of The Habits Academy.
Your habits can compound for or against you. Productivity compounds. Stress compounds. Knowledge compounds. Negative thoughts compound. Relationships compound. Outrage compounds.
Ultimately, it is your commitment to the PROCESS that will determine your PROGRESS. The process of building a habit can be divided into simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. The 4 laws of behavior change are: make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, and make it satisfying. One effective way to build a habit is to try habit stacking: after I (current habit), I will (new habit) OR get two things done at once.
Ex: listen to a podcast while driving/cooking/getting ready for the day/cleaning/working out.
Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on WHAT they want to achieve, which leads to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits, which focus on WHO we wish to become.
Ex: The goal is not to read a book; it is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon; it is to become a runner.
Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity. What you do is an indication of the type of person you believe that you are – either consciously or unconsciously. You have the power to change your beliefs about yourself and change the identity you want to reinforce today with the habits you choose today. You become your habits.
Consider this: “Does the behavior help me become the type of person I wish to be? Does this habit cast a vote for or against my identity?”
The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. There will be days when you feel like quitting. Professionals stick to the schedule. Amateurs let life get in the way. Professionals know what is important to them and work toward it with purpose. Amateurs get pulled off course by the urgencies of life.
I have found habit tracking to be useful. It creates a visual cue that reminds me to act, it is motivating to see my progress, and I don’t want to break the streak. There were many days in 2022 that I didn’t feel like walking, reading, etc., but I knew that I had a perfect streak with those habits and did not want to ruin it.
I also periodically check in to see if my habits are still serving me and consider which habits to add. For example, one month, my goal was to get 10,000 steps each day. I achieved that goal, but after reflecting, I felt that I was so focused on achieving a random number and did not dedicate as much time or energy to other areas of my life, so I decided that habit was no longer serving me. Life is constantly changing, so you need to periodically check in to see if your old habits and beliefs are still serving you.
Your actions reveal how badly you want something. Actions establish priorities. Reward is on the other side of sacrifice. The secret to getting results is to never stop making improvements.
***If you want to learn more and are an auditory learner, I highly recommend the following podcast episodes:
I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!
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