I mentioned that, for the past few months, I've begun attempting to:
1. add a new habit
2. solidify the previous month's habit.
I've realized that trying to add more than one habit a month is a recipe for disaster --- the best we can do is to add one, and solidify another.
This month --- Write an article (~750+ words / day)
For the month of September, I'm working on adding the habit of "Writing 750 words a day" and solidifying August's habit of "hitting the gym five days a week".
I'll likely be publishing the majority of these posts, and emailing out a lot of them. So, expect a lot more content from me.
So, I thought I would tell you the process I'm going through to make my new habit a reality.
The process for building a new habit
I've researched habit change and behavioral technology for years, and in doing so, I've refined my ideas for building a new habit. Let me show you my process --- hopefully you can take something away from it.
1) Have a baseline foundation for locations I'll be.
While traveling, I never know what I'll be doing each night or even where I'll be sleeping in a few days --- clearly a recipe for habit failure. Now that I'm living in Boston and trying to solidify my daily routine, creating the basic "home" and "work" locations are paramount.
I've rented an apartment in Beacon Hill, about a 15 minute walk from my office. My office is also a five minute walk away from my gym. So, now I can add a location element to my habits.
Last month, I tended to arrive to work around 9:30am or 10:00am, and headed to the gym at 1:00pm. This month, I'm aiming to add my “Writing 750 words a day” to my morning routine, meaning that I'll finish writing the words before I arrive at the office. In my dream routine which I jotted below, you'll see that my goal is to finish up writing and head immediately to the gym on my way to the office.
2) Identify the components of the habits I'm trying to build
The book The Power of Habit was extremely powerful for my understanding of the habit creation and replacement process. In the book, Charles Duhigg breaks a habit into a three-stage process.
You can see that a habit is made up of a 1) CUE, 2) ROUTINE, and 3) REWARD. The process for adding a new Habit is different than replacing or subtracting a new habit. For my purpose, I'm trying to add a new habit, so I need to work through the 'habit creation' process.
I reviewed my mentor and past-professor BJ Fogg's Behavior Wizard to identify his system to creating a new habit.
BJ's Behavior Grid says the following about 'Building a New Habit from now on':
If you want someone to do a new behavior for the long term, you are seeking a Green Path Behavior.
Examples include:
Health: Consume flax seed oil each morning, from now on.
Environment: Always use fluorescent light bulbs.
Commerce: Buy a new brand of toothpaste from now on.
To achieve a Green Path Behavior, three elements must come together at once. As the Fogg Behavior Model describes, you must Trigger the behavior when the person is both Motivated and Able to perform it. This combination must happen over and over, as the habit gets created and then strengthened.
Couple the trigger with an existing habit
Increase the perceived ability (self-efficacy) by making the behavior easier to do
Reduce demotivation by making the behavior more familiar
The challenge is in influencing the target audience to perform the behavior and then getting them to repeat it, from today onward. Green Path relates to forming new habits.
So, what does this mean to me? I must couple the trigger with an existing habit, make the habit easier to do, and reduce demotivation by making the habit more familiar.
1. Couple the trigger with an existing habit.
Today, on Day 2, I woke up early and intended to start working on writing as the first thing after showering and brushing. I found myself a little distracted,
