Start Hilariously Small

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” — Vincent Van Gogh

Habits seem to be all the rage lately, and for good reason. Habits make us what we are. They decide the content of our days and what we do when we’re on autopilot. They decide how we react in a given situation and whether or not we’ll achieve our goals. Depending on the nature of the habit, it could even be life or death. The research tells us that parts of our brain that exert higher-order thinking aren’t even on when we are doing certain tasks. Habits are that automatic. It makes sense, then, that research around habits and habit-formation has so much attention. And yet with so much information out there and step-by-step processes, many of us struggle to implement healthy habits in our lives in an effective, long-term way. And the blockers may be some habits themselves — our addiction to information, to read and know more before taking action — and the tendency to overload ourselves with big jumps all at once.

The latter reason is exactly why I wanted to write this. While everything out there tells us to make a small change, building each habit one at a time, some of us just can’t help but overload ourselves. We battle against the inertia of our poor habits to, well, err…build more habits.

For example, what do you do when you want to start running? If you’re like a lot of people, even though the last time you ran was when your neighbor’s asshole dog chased you down the block in high school, you’ll start with some plan of 10 minutes a day, which sounds somewhat reasonable. But after a week or so…oh well, I can skip today cause my toe hurts and then before you know it you’re back to square 1. You know the deal.

In my quest to ruthlessly 80/20 everything, I deduced it down to what I consider the most important factor for habit-forming: start hilariously small. Yes, it’s already been said, but I don’t think it’s stressed enough. I mean, really freakin’ small. So small you’ll be embarrassed to tell people. So small you wonder if it’s even going to do anything. But like anything that’s done consistently, it produces results. And it works particularly well for habits that you’ve struggled with for a long time and just can’t seem to sustain.

So if you want to run and it’s been a damn long time, start with a few times a week, for only a few minutes. Too much? Start with just Mondays for a few minutes. Too much? Go outside and run for a minute! The point is to keep reducing it down until you start somewhere and can keep it up. When we do this, we set about inertia in a certain direction. And habits are nothing but inertia after all.

The Resistance

I struggled and resisted for years because I deemed starting hilariously small as ridiculous, but now I see that it challenged my all-or-nothing mentality. Take this article, for example. I started it by telling myself I’d write for 10 minutes. For someone who doesn’t have a 9–5 job and has reduced all external commitments to a minimum, writing for 10 minutes a day may seem like a joke (I actually started with 5 minutes a day!). But without this approachable goal, I’d be stuck dreaming about writing for hours everyday, rather than doing any writing at all. We hear this type of thinking all the time, and it’s a deadly excuse from an all-or-nothing mindset that believes something should be full-on intense or isn’t worth doing. This part of us doesn’t want to make lifestyle changes, it just wants the end result. We start small and it tells us “Oh, what’s the point?” But there is a point. Because each time we think it’s too small and not worth doing, we allow the inertia to continue in an unwanted direction. Each time, we’re ignoring the fact that we’re only dreaming about a future of accomplishment. We’re in an ocean of habits whether we like it or not, so we might as well take some control over the direction.

With an all-or-nothing mindset, the simple facts get overlooked: Progress is still, and always will be, progress. The tiniest of steps forward is better than staying in the previous position wishing and wondering how you’ll make a giant leap. Those small steps give us a sense of success, what is commonly known as small wins. The importance of small wins is paramount, as it is rewiring a reward into us to reinforce the habit. We remember it feels good to do something, anything, instead of nothing. It’s action-based motivation. So when we set ourselves up with a habit that we can’t keep, we’re not only failing on the habit, we’re actively demotivating ourselves. We set up everything — the epic goal, the frequency, the duration — and then feel bad for failing even though no one forced us to set it up that way in the first place. Isn’t that a bit more ridiculous than 1-minute habits?

The amazing thing about small habits is that you can increase the load in hardly noticeable increments. Increasing your running time by even 1 minute a week has impressive effects over a few months, and could even be done in increments of seconds per day. But most of us have probably never sat down to do the actual math. Our instant-gratification culture and automatic wiring overlook the effects of inching towards something. And if the idea of inching instead of leaping still making you uncomfortable, keep in mind that you’ll often continue doing the habit for longer than you set out. Some days, I’ll write for an hour or two. But had I suddenly set a goal of 2 hours you’ll be damn sure I’ll fail. Use the power of inertia to your advantage.

It’s important to point out that there are three awesome partners to starting hilariously small: “trigger habits”, rewards and reflection. A powerful trigger habit is one that you do without any thought (ideally at the same time each day), onto which you can attach other habits. You already brush your teeth (I hope) and getting a meditation practice going for a few minutes right after could become automatic. You could even turn habits you don’t particularly like, i.e. compulsively checking Facebook, as a trigger to get up and do a stretch. The world is your oyster.

Rewards are essential as well, particularly if the habit is new. Remember that we are literally rewiring ways we attain feeling good. If you like making lists, for example, checking stuff off gives a great reward. Some people even reward themselves with a piece of chocolate (though I’d be careful here!).

Lastly, I’ve found reflection over the past week to see what I’ve done helps reframe all-or-nothing thinking. I can internalize that consistently doing small tasks does result in something. Watching the progress is both motivating and gratifying, and especially important because it was done without one giant effort, which is what my mind often clings to as the way to get things done. The other aspect of reflection is being aware of where you’re starting from. For example, if you’ve never had a committed, monogamous relationship before, it may not be wise to attempt open relationships with multiple partners. You likely haven’t developed the habits of open communication and emotional processing that’s required for such complexity. There’s going to be a lot of struggle, which is a strong indicator that you’re in over your head. Take it down a notch. Go on some dates. Learn to befriend the opposite sex and have fun. Remember where you’re starting from.

And so as this journey continues, I believe less and less in any forced self-discipline and more in the simple act of showing up. And if we need to reduce that effort to where no discipline is required, then maybe that’s what we need to get started. Knowing our habits and how we form them puts conscious choice back into our lives, a goal I think is worth striving for.

Good luck. I’m off to clean my room for 2 minutes.

Sidenote: One of the best things I’ve done to chip away at goals is keeping a calendar next to the lightswitch in my room with my daily habits. I can see it before bedtime and I mark a big “X” next to each habit I maintain. The game of keeping as many X’s in a row as possible is incredibly motivating. I can look back at how many days I’ve stayed consistent and it keeps me present — I’m not so concerned about the long-term outcome because it’s happening on its own.

Here’s some of my favorite stuff on habits:
http://bit.ly/1RgrzfC
http://markmanson.net/goals
http://jamesclear.com/