The start of a new year is the time for resolutions. Big resolutions. However, science shows it is much easier to make tiny rather than big changes, and that the tiny changes we make are longer lasting.
I am by no means an expert on habits and I have plenty to improve on myself. Nevertheless, here are four ways I have personally made and maintained habit changes with good impacts:
1. Make it tiny
Many of us have big dreams and in the rush of enthusiasm and motivation, big changes seem exciting and doable. A quick way to achieve a big goal. But the motivation will diminish over time, big goals start to seem daunting and we feel like failures for not achieving our goals.
It is much easier to make a tiny habit change in the right direction than to completely change the way we currently do things. Give yourself permission to take it slow. Feel good about every small step you take in the right direction and just keep going at it.
One tiny habit I learned from Gretchen Rubin is to move objects closer to where they should be. Advice that can be often heard if you want your home to stay tidy is to always put items back where they belong after each use. This understandably works and is thus solid advice but I personally often found myself unable to do this seemingly simple step. A child would have an emergency and I would be forced to leave things where they didn’t belong (these range from broken Lego creations to true emergencies and everything in between, you get the idea). Now, thanks to Gretchen, I don’t feel bad about leaving things where they don’t belong. I’ll come back to it and move it if not all the way where it belongs at least closer.
A similar and related tiny habit I’ve adopted is to always quickly scan a room when I’m about to leave and take out what doesn’t belong there. A tea strainer in the bathtub. Pick it up and move it closer to the kitchen. A dirty sock on the living room floor. Pick it up and take it to the laundry hamper. A screw on the kitchen counter. Pick it up and put it by the front door closer to the garage. The important part of this tiny habit is obviously to follow through and actually take the screw to the garage the next time you leave the house.
These two tiny habits, picking things up from where they don’t belong and moving things closer to where they do belong if not all the way where they belong, have had a huge impact on my home’s everyday tidiness.
2. Make it simple
For habits to stick, you have to make them not just tiny but also easy. Very easy. If doing the habit is easier than not doing the habit it will likely stay with you.
One of the first decisions I ever made (as far as I can remember), and kept, was to never buy cookies when I have my own home. Growing up we always had cookies in the cupboard, and I always ate them. Even as a teenager I realized I didn’t have enough willpower to resist the cookies that were right there but I could perfectly well live without them if they were not there. To this day, I never bring cookies home.
Not only is this habit easy since it requires me to do - nothing - it’s also not very restrictive. It’s not the same as “I will never eat cookies” or “I will never buy any sweets”. Know your weaknesses and build habits to protect yourself.
Another simple habit that has stuck with me has been to think of three things that I am grateful for just before I go to sleep. I don’t write them down. I simply take a moment and review my day finding at least three things I can feel grateful for. Sometimes these have been surprising. On a more challenging day, I remember thinking: “I am grateful for my son for coming to my bed with dirty clothes and making me change the sheets even if I didn’t feel like doing it because now I get to sleep on fresh sheets.” There is always something, no matter how tiny, to be grateful for.
3. Anchor/Stack habits
Even with good intentions and no matter how tiny and simple the act required is, we sometimes simply forget to do what we promised ourselves (and maybe even others) we would do. It’s natural. We need reminders. There are of course phone reminders, calendars, and post-it notes. But I’d say a more powerful reminder is to link new habits with something you already do.
When I wake up I open the curtains and make my bed. After dinner, I clean up the kitchen and take the trash (bio-waste) out. After getting my kids to bed I do yoga.
To prevent an end of day kitchen chaos I have also adopted a habit from professional chefs: clean as you cook. Putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher while waiting for the pot of water to boil. Putting scraps in the compost bin. Quickly rinsing and drying a knife and returning it to the knife magnet. Putting food items back to the fridge and pantry as soon as they are no longer needed.
Within a week or two, I find that new tiny, simple habits that are anchored to other things I already do become like second nature and I no longer need to actively consider making that decision.
4. Build habits to eliminate decision making
And that brings me to why habits are handy. Building habits eliminate making decisions over and over again about the same things. Making decisions requires brainpower. Let’s not waste that on little things! Let’s save that energy for bigger, more important decisions.
80% of the time I eat the same breakfast. 80% of the time I go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time (the latter is enforced by my kids, thank you darlings ;) ).
Decide once and forget any other options even exist!
Most importantly, if you ever notice you stopped doing what you wanted to do or didn’t stop doing what you didn’t want to do, do not feel bad, and do not give up! This will do no one any good in this universe, including you. Just pick up where you left off and continue one moment and day at a time. Every moment is new. A possibility to start a new habit.
*Please note that these are my personal habit changes that I found value in. Consider what you want to change in your life (if anything!) and then break that into tiny, actionable steps that you can take towards your personal bigger goal.
This blog post was inspired by BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits and Gretchen Rubin