Excellence begins with a habit. But we all know that habits, especially the positive ones, are not always easy to develop. Often, we intend to create new habits but eventually abandon them after some time, usually because we simply cannot make them stick, because our willpower lets us down.

One way we set up ourselves to fail in making new habits stick is when we want to develop big, life-changing habits in a short amount of time. This is where the concept of micro habits can help.

So what are micro habits? Just like what the name suggests, these are small habits that we can do consistently and relatively easily. They can lead us into our bigger goals and help improve our lives in the long run.

Here's an example to illustrate the idea. You want to drink more water, since you have noticed that you don't drink enough water in a day, and we all know that water is good for you. But you are having a hard time remembering to drink throughout the day.

To help you in achieving your goal of drinking more water, you can simply set a couple of alarms on your phone to remind you. That simple act of setting alarms instead of relying on unreliable memory is a micro habit that trains you to develop the bigger habit of drinking sufficient water.

By having these micro habits, we make bigger, more life-changing habits easier to develop and stick to. Here are some ways in which we can do to create workable new habits and actually stick to them.

Come Up With A Plan

Before starting to develop a new habit, the outcome must be clear to you first. What is it that you want to achieve by developing a new specific habit? By defining it, you are able to make this new habit more personal to you and therefore more realistic to achieve. Once you are able to identify the outcome, you can think about what micro habits you can form which can help you achieve the goal.

Say you want to run your first marathon. Being able to run a marathon takes time to practice and develop enough stamina to last throughout the course. To help you achieve your goal of running a marathon for the first time, you can plan a routine of running daily every morning.

To help you stick to that routine, a micro habit that you can practice is to lay out your running clothes the night before so you can simply get up and go first thing in the morning. The act of setting out your running clothes and shoes is not exactly a big change, but it will help you achieve your desired outcome.

Allow Yourself Time To Develop New Habits

Old habits die hard, and new ones can be difficult to form. We need to understand that habits take time to develop. According to some research, it takes a minimum of 21 weeks to cement new habits, and this is just an estimate. Instead of giving yourself a specific time frame in developing a new habit, what you should do is to aim for repeated and consistent practice.

Coming up with micro habits can help you with this step because tiny changes are easy to do consistently. If you fail to do it for one day, there is no need to punish yourself for it. You can simply look at the factors that led you to miss the action and think of ways to address it. By not giving yourself a time limit, you allow yourself to further examine your plan and constantly improve it as you go along.

Keep Track Of Your Progress

When trying to develop a new habit, it is important to keep track of your progress as a reminder of how far you have come. Seeing how often or how seldom you have done the action can motivate further motivate you. More importantly, if needed,