If you don’t want to slip, don’t go where it’s slippery.
Alcoholics Anonymous Maxim
It’s August 2021, I am fired up. I am going to live my best life. I am going to be a writer. I buy my domain. Set up my WordPress theme. I start blogging. I promise myself. I am going to write two articles every week. I am passionate about this blogging thing. I am going to make it happen.
As it turns out, I wrote articles up to September 2022. It took only about a year and one month for my passion – willpower – to run out. I failed to continue writing because I didn’t have a system. I didn’t have habits that made writing easy to do.
Habits are a collection of actions or activities that we perform regularly. Habits are the building blocks of our lives. We rely on them as ways to live our lives without overthinking. According to James Clear, our habits significantly determine what we become. In other words, we are what we repeatedly do.
If our actions determine our outcomes, then we change our lives by changing our actions. For example, if you regularly exercise, you are building a stock of health benefits for the future. If you regularly save money, you are building wealth for the future. By repeating these habits, you are adding to something remarkable in the future.
One of the biggest challenges of habits is picking up a new habit or stopping an old habit. The difficulty lies in the fact we don’t like to do new things. We want to maintain our old ways of doing things. We tend to repeat our actions. We are more likely to go to work today because we went to work yesterday. Similarly, we are likelier to watch Netflix after work because we did it yesterday. Human have a sense of routine guiding their actions. What we did last year is what we will do this year.
How can we change what we have been doing?
Many believe they can use the power of their minds to change their behavior. For instance, some people believe that thinking alone can make them quit smoking. They can use willpower. I have been on this path, and it leads to no change.
The challenge is that Willpower is a depleting resource. Something that fades away the more we use it. This means you can resist the chocolate cake in the morning more than when you are tired from work in the evening. For example, former President Obama and Bill Gates have only gray and dark blue suits. They have decided to do less decision-making in the morning.
Studies have shown that willpower is a muscle. Like any muscle, willpower gets tired. Willpower is finite. If people are tired or hungry, they are less likely to resist chunk food or get up to exercise.
In the well-known Marsh mellow experiment, Kids between the ages of 2 and 5 were left with a Marsh mellow. The instructions were not to eat the single Marsh mellow until the researcher returned. Their reward would be three more Marsh mellows.
Most kids couldn’t resist eating the marsh mellow when the researchers left. Only a handful could wait for the bigger reward.
Using willpower as the source for behavioral change is extremely difficult, and it is unlikely to get consistent results.
So, how can we change certain habits if we can’t use willpower?
One good technique is environmental change. Humans are creatures of our environment. We react to what is in our environment. We respond to what we see, feel, and smell.
So, if we can change our environment, would that aid our bid to change our habits?
Yes, by making the new habits easy to do. For instance, I can meet a consistent schedule with my writing because I have intentionally removed all the friction with it.
I have thrown away my old Windows Laptop because it was too difficult to make it work. The battery life on that laptop was about 30 minutes long. It was slow. It was frustrating to work on. I have bought an Apple MacBook M1. This Laptop has made writing the main focus of my morning, not watching when my battery will die.
I have also separated my writing into different stages. Gathering inputs, putting the inputs together, and reviewing the output. I have a Notion Database where I put all the notes and ideas I gather from consuming content. I then link all these ideas into a new article as a first draft. The next step is to review and publish my draft.
I keep all vitamins at my bedside to build a system around my health habits. This makes it easy for me to reach out and grab them when I go to bed. This simple shift has meant that I don’t miss taking my vitamins.
Here is a list of examples of environmental changes you can make
- Suppose ice cream in your fridge makes you sneak out at night for a snack. You are better off leaving it off your grocery list.
- Removing unhealthy snacks from your kitchen or workplace makes avoiding them easier.
- Placing your workout clothes by your bed or front door makes exercising easier in the morning.
- Setting your phone to “Do Not Disturb” during designated work hours to minimize distractions and improve productivity.
- Using a standing desk or exercise ball chair encourages more movement and better posture throughout the day.
- Keeping a water bottle at your desk to remind you to stay hydrated and avoid sugary drinks.
Summary
In summary, we cannot think of our way out of a bad habit. We cannot use willpower to eliminate our bad habits. Because willpower is a limited resource, you can change your habits by changing your environment. You can make good habits obvious and bad habits invisible. For instance, the vitamins I take every night are by my bedside. I don’t have to get up and go for them. This makes it much easier to keep taking my vitamins.
Now It’s Your Turn
Are you planning on changing any habits? Why don’t you try changing your environment?
