Make it Easy to Do Right, and Hard to Go Wrong
Make it more convenient to stick to your new habit, and more difficult to skip your new habit.
A piece of advice that I’m resonating with:
“Make it easy to do right, and hard to go wrong”
— Gretchen Rubin
In my own life and in working with Clients who are trying to establish a new habit, this is one principle that has almost always helped:
Make it more convenient to stick to your new habit, and more difficult to skip your new habit.
An example of how I used this when struggling with making a daily walk a part of my life might make this clearer
Make it easy to do your habit
When I was trying to establish a habit of going for a walk every morning, I made sure I set out the clothes/shoes that I was going to wear before I went to bed the previous night. I did not want to make it more difficult to go out walking by having to go through my wardrobe and make decisions or finding that my walking shoes needed the shoelaces changed or adjusted.
Make it difficult to skip your habit
At the same time, I also made a habit of buying our daily supply of milk from a neighbourhood shop — when returning from my walk. So not going for a walk meant that we would be out of milk and have to explain to everyone why there was no milk for their coffee. (Believe me that is a powerful deterrent at my home)
The idea is to make it easier to choose to do your habit by putting in the necessary preparation in advance (eg setting the alarm the night before, keeping fruits and healthy snacks handy, shutting down all open programs on your computer or apps on your device when you are done for the day) and making it inconvenient to do the wrong thing ( eg placing the alarm across the room so it is difficult to hit snooze, not stocking unhealthy snacks at home, making accessing emails difficult so that you are not tempted to look at them first thing in the morning, etc)
What are some of the ways in which you can make it easier for yourself to stick with your habit, and difficult or inconvenient to skip it?
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About Me
As an Executive Coach and Mentor, I help committed people like you Unleash Your True Potential, and achieve greater success and fulfilment — at work and in life. This requires work in three areas — Unleash Your Productivity, Unleash Your Career and Unleash Your Leadership. Please subscribe to my personal blog to access and download free resources
