The Single Most Important Moment When Forming a Habit
Every night for the past week and a half, I’ve been doing sit-ups before bed.
Last night, I almost skipped that routine. I stood there for a brief moment, looked over my bed and imagined how glorious it would be to call it a night.
It would’ve been so easy.
So easy to skip my sit-ups and crawl into bed as I’ve done hundreds, if not thousands, of other times in my life. But in that brief moment, I managed to stop my thoughts in their tracks — that negative train of thinking — and act.
It’s that fleeting moment that is the single most important moment when forming any habit. It’s very subtle and sneaks up on you when you least expect it, usually (and very inconveniently) when feeling overconfident that you’ll follow through, and almost always when “beginner’s” motivation fades, making the decision even harder.
Your action in that moment is vital because it’s the make-or-break moment in the cycle.
If you push past it, you validate your drive to form the habit. It reassures your inner-self that you mean business. Then, when more of those moments arise, you’ll push past it again, and again because you know you can.
If you don’t, you start to doubt your desire for the habit. “Maybe it’s not as important to me as I thought.” “Do I really need to do this?” These are the thoughts that might not be at the surface, but rest assured they’re there.
So, when that moment strikes, what do you do?
Will it be “Eh, I don’t need to do those sit-ups tonight. I’ve earned a break for today…”
Or will it be “F*ck it. Let’s do it.”
How you respond means everything.
For the sake of a good story, let’s say you choose the former. Once you decide to tap out and call it a night, those 7 little worlds pop into your head, “…I’ll just start back up tomorrow.”
Yeah, right. How often does that happen?
Almost, never.
How to deal, man?
Now that you know how important and extremely hard this moment is to overcome, let me teach you how to fight it.
There are two paths you can choose to getting past this hump and forming the habits you originally set out to:
Primary: Stop your thinking and act immediately
If you let your thoughts linger for too long, that’s when you start to second guess yourself. “Maybe I don’t need to do this.” It’s always best to stop this line of thinking ASAP and dive right into your desired behavior.
Stop thinking about not doing it, and just do it. By the time you begin to process those negative thoughts again, you’ll have started your routine. At that point, it’s harder to quit than to finish.
I mean, seriously, once I’ve done 12 sit-ups, what’s the point in stopping there?
a. I’d feel like a bitch.
b. I’ve made it past the hardest part — the initial friction in starting the behavior — so the rest is downhill.
c. 12 sit-ups won’t do much good for me, so I might as well do the full 50.
Me aside, taking immediate action should always be your first option — it’s certainly the easiest. But, let’s say you screwed up and let those thoughts sit a little too long…
Secondary: Discipline and Desire
If you plan to keep your habit going, then you better hope you either have the discipline or a strong desire to form the habit. The longer you sit there and think, the stronger one or both of these needs to be to take action.
Let’s look at desire first. Two women are trying to quit smoking. One is an expectant mother. The other is not. All other things equal, which one do you think has a better chance of succeeding?
The expectant mother, obviously (at least you would hope).
She has much more motivation, ergo desire, to quit her habit than the other woman. If we were placing a bet on who would quit smoking first, I’d take the mother every time.
With a strong desire, you can eventually overcome just about anything that stands in your way. Well, almost anything.
Now let’s talk about discipline.
Even with the desire to do form a habit, you might not have the discipline to do so.
When I was younger, I struggled to do things I didn’t want to do. They weren’t fun, so if it were up to me, I always chose fun things instead. Of course, I lived under the rule of my parents, so I didn’t have to make that choice. They forced me to study and do the things I didn’t want to.
At that time, you could say my discipline muscle was pretty weak. I hadn’t developed the discipline to do things I didn’t want to, let alone the things I did want to.
Over time, I got to “work out” that muscle. I struggled at first, but eventually things got easier. Each time I failed at building a new habit — habits like eating healthier, exercising, and practicing mindfulness — I gained a few discipline points.
I’m not saying I’m now a discipline master by any means, but I have finally formed the habits I needed, and I work on new ones all the time.
But here’s where things get tricky.
Even with all the discipline in the world, your chances of forming a habit are small if you don’t have the desire. It’s kind of a catch 22…somewhat? Yeah, let’s go with that.
So, going back to that critical moment — if you let yourself think too hard and begin spiraling down that negative path of resistance — your best bet is to have a combination of a strong desire to form the habit and the discipline to keep it going when that desire fails.
That means:
1. Form habits that you have a strong desire to do so
If it’s a habit that you desperately need to form but don’t think the desire is there, consider reframing where you dig that desire from.
For example, if your doctor tells you that you will have a heart attack and die if you don’t change your eating habits, but you don’t care about your health, maybe you should think about your family, who need you and love you.
2. Start working on your discipline, like yesterday
Eventually, with practice, you can start forming habits you don’t want to. If you expect to be able to do this, you need to have the discipline to do so.
Start with a habit that you have the desire to form. Then once your discipline is strong enough, try something you need to do but don’t necessarily want to, and put your discipline to the test.
Once you have everything figured out, you can use your newfound dynamic duo to power past any number of those critical moments.
Or, you could heed my first piece of advice and silence that negative Nancy from the get-go. Either way, they both work.
Before you go…
I’m Jason Gutierrez. I try to write things that change people’s lives for the better. The Sunday Connection newsletter is where I share my life lessons and tips for healthy living. No bullshit. No spam. Just honest advice. Get updates here.
