6 Changes

Key to Habit Change: Enjoy the Activity

Many people try to form habits that they don’t enjoy, because they think it’s virtuous, or because it will lead to a goal they want (flatter stomach, losing weight, financial wealth, etc.).

But this is a recipe for failure. When you try to exercise “discipline”, what that really means is forcing yourself to do something you don’t want to do. This will only last for a little while, and then you’ll inevitably give up.

Trust me. I’ve fought this battle too many times to count.

So what’s the answer? Enjoy the activity.

If one person does an exercise activity he loves, and another an exercise she hates, guess who will stay with it the longest?

If you look forward to the activity, no matter what it is, you’re going to have a huge advantage in making the activity into a habit. You’ll still need to follow the steps in the method, but if you ignore the enjoyment aspect, the method won’t work very well at all.

What if you want to form a habit that you don’t particularly enjoy? Again, like exercise, or waking early, or flossing, or whatever? You’re going to need to find ways to enjoy the activity.

Some ideas:

• Find exercise you enjoy, and focus on the enjoyable aspects as you do it. Don’t think about how difficult it is.
• Play! Whether it’s playing a sport as exercise or going outside with your kids and running and jumping around, find a way to turn something you don’t normally find fun into a game or into some kind of play.
• Set up a competition — with whatever your goal activity is, whether that be saving money or writing every day — between you and others, or just against yourself.
• Create an enjoyable experience. Play nice music when you meditate, get some coffee for when you write, drink tea as you read a novel, and so on.
• If you’re trying to eat healthy, choose healthy foods you love. Focus on how lovely the foods are, not on what you’re sacrificing.
• If you’re trying to quit a habit you find pleasurable (smoking, for example), don’t focus on how you’re giving up pleasure. Instead, think of the negative aspects of the activity (the bad taste smoking gives you afterward, or how it makes your clothes stink, or what it’s doing to your lungs and the rest of your body, or the cancer it causes) … and then replace it with something that you find pleasurable. For example, going outside for a refreshing walk, or spending time with a loved one.

There are many other ways to make something enjoyable, but however you do it, don’t ignore this advice. Your new habit depends on it.

How to Kick a Bad Habit

Many of you will be looking not to create a new habit, but to break an old, bad habit — smoking, drinking, procrastinating, checking email too often, watching television, driving too fast, eating too many sweets, drinking coffee, etc.

Here’s the secret: replace the bad habit with good ones.

You’ll notice the plural there — in most cases you’ll be creating several new habits to replace one bad habit. And in fact, you might make those several new habits a good part of the six habits you choose.

1. Triggers. What you need to do first is make a list of all the triggers you have for your bad habit. What things trigger the urge to do the bad habit? To answer this, I recommend you do an exercise for a day or two: every time you do the habit, just make a tally mark on a small piece of paper that you carry around with you everywhere. This will help you become more aware of your habit.

Once you’ve done that, take a day or two to write down your triggers each time you do the bad habit. There will be several, or perhaps many.

Example: when I quit smoking, here were some of my triggers (these are from memory - it’s not a complete list): waking up and using the bathroom, drinking coffee, drinking soda, eating, socializing with other smokers, meetings, driving, stress, going out and drinking.

2. Replacement habits. Now that you know your triggers, you need to select positive replacement habits for each trigger. Sometimes one habit can cover two or more triggers, but in many cases you’ll be finding one new habit for each trigger.

As an example, here’s a list of the replacement habits I formed when I quit smoking:

• waking up and using the bathroom - instead of smoking, I would read.
• drinking coffee - also read.
• drinking soda - I drank water instead, as it’s healthier.
• eating - drinking water, going for a walk.
• socializing with other smokers - I ended up socializing with smokers less.
• meetings - type notes and send any necessary emails right after meeting.
• driving - focus on driving slower and being more present.
• stress - exercise, deep breathing, walking.
• going out and drinking - I ended up going out less.

3. All at once, or one at a time. This is a tough question. When I quit smoking, I decided to go cold turkey and quit all at once. It wasn’t easy and took a massive effort.

However, I’ve kicked other bad habits (sweets, procrastination) by changing one trigger at a time, creating one positive habit at a time. I recommend this method, as it’s easier and less likely to fail.

If you do this, focus on one new good habit for one or more triggers. Running to burn off stress, or first thing in the morning, is a good example.

Eventually, you’ll have conquered all your triggers, and the bad habit will be erased.

Suggested Habits: Which 6 Should You Pick for 2010?

Which 6 habits you choose for 2010 is a highly personal issue - it depends on what you want in life, where you’re at, what you’ve done already, what kind of a person you want to be.

Are you unhealthy or overweight? You might want to choose habits related to eating healthier and exercising regularly.

Are you stressed out and in debt? You might choose habits dealing with decluttering, simplifying your schedule, becoming more frugal.

Are you looking for a career change? You could choose things like waking early, so you can have more time to work on a new career, and creating something amazing every day.

Tired of smoking or drinking or procrastinating? Replace your old habits with new triggers.

But for most people, here are some great habits you could choose from that I believe will make the most difference:

1. Daily exercise. Choose an activity you enjoy.
2. Eating healthier. Choose real, unprocessed foods that you love.
3. Waking earlier. This isn’t completely necessary for anything, other than it gives you some quiet time where you can relax and find peace, or create something amazing in quiet.
4. Decluttering. Simplifying your schedule and possessions is an amazing way to find the focus you’re looking for.
5. Focus on creating. Every day, set aside time at the beginning of the day to clear away distractions and just create that something amazing.
6. Stopping impulse spending. This could make a great difference to your finances and help get you out of debt.

There are many other great choices, of course, including but not limited to:

• Reading novels.
• Taking photographs.
• Flossing.
• Quitting smoking or drinking.
• Scrapbooking.
• Spending quality time with spouse or kids.
• Hiking.
• Cooking.
• Getting organized.
• Keeping your house clean.
• Saving or making debt payments.

And many more. What six will you choose?

The Art of the Start of a Habit

Starting any new endeavor, any new habit, is the hardest part. It’s hard to get up the momentum, the energy, to start a really hard project, such as creating a new habit.

And when we don’t start, we never get there.

Most people fail because they don’t even start.

The 6 Changes Method beats this tendency, overcomes that initial inertia.

Here’s how to beat inertia and get started:

Start ridiculously easy and small.

That’s it. That, and public accountability.

When I tell people how ridiculously easy they should start, they think I’m kidding. They think that’s too easy, and they decide to skip the first really easy step. They’re making a mistake.

The first step is the most important step, in the beginning. After that, the next step is the most important step.

You want to start as small and easy as possible, so that there is no excuse for not starting. You won’t be intimidated or overwhelmed, because you’re setting the bar as low as possible — you can’t possibly get tripped up by it, so you have no choice but to do it.

And if you tell people you’re going to start with this ridiculously easy step (public accountability), you’ll be embarrassed not to start.

Here are some examples of ridiculously easy starts — engineered so you can’t fail:

• Start exercise just by putting on your shoes and going outside.
• Start flossing simply by taking out a piece of floss each night at the same time. Don’t actually floss.
• Start eating healthy simply by drinking a glass of water at each meal.
• Start waking early just by setting your alarm 5 minutes early the first week.
• Start decluttering by choosing one thing you can get rid of each day. Just one.
• Start kicking the smoking habit by starting your day reading (or watching a sunrise, or meditation, or whatever) instead of smoking. Just replace that one cigarette at first.
• Start kicking the email obsession by doing it one less time per hour — and doing something else, like updating your to-do list or taking one action on a report you’re working on, or whatever.

Start really really easy and small, and tell lots of people about it. You won’t fail to start.

How to Form the Exercise Habit

Of course, there are many ways to form the exercise habit, but here’s a suggested plan using the 6 Changes Method:

Commit as publicly as possible to forming this habit in 2 months. Also commit publicly each week to that week’s change.

Week 1: Lace up your shoes and get out the door. That’s it. Go back inside and do whatever you want after that. Choose a trigger (after your morning coffee, right when you get home from work, etc.) and do it right after the trigger each day.

Week 2: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, and walk for 5 minutes. That’s all. Baby steps.

Week 3: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, walk for 10 minutes.

Week 4: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, walk for 15 minutes.

Week 5: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, walk for 15 minutes, with a couple of 30-second jogging intervals thrown in.

Week 6: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, walk for 20 minutes, with four 30-second jogging intervals thrown in.

Week 7: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, alternate jogging and walking for 20 minutes.

Week 8: Lace up your shoes, get out the door, and jog for 20 minutes, with a few walk breaks thrown in.

That’s it. Small baby steps, and after two months, you have a new habit that’s pretty firmly ingrained.

The Problems With New Year’s Resolutions

What I love about the New Year is the hope that we all seem to have, every year, at this fresh start.

We believe we can change our lives.

Unfortunately, that enthusiasm and hope often fades within weeks, and our efforts at self improvement come to a whimpering end. That’s not great, but it’s also not inevitable.

New Year’s Resolutions usually fail because of a combination of some of these reasons:

1. We try to do too many resolutions at once, and that spreads our focus and energies too thin. It’s much less effective to do many habits at once (read more).
2. We only have a certain amount of enthusiasm and motivation, and it runs out because we try to do too much, too soon. We spend all that energy in the beginning and then run out of steam.
3. We try to do really tough habits right away, which means it’s difficult and we become overwhelmed or intimidated by the difficulty and quit.
4. We try to be “disciplined” and do very unpleasant habits, but our nature won’t allow that to last for long. If we really don’t want to do something, we won’t be able to force ourselves to do it for long.
5. Life gets in the way. Things come up unexpectedly that get in the way of us sticking with a habit.
6. Resolutions are often vague — I’m going to exercise! — but don’t contain a concrete action plan and don’t use proven habit techniques. That’s a recipe for failure.

There are other reasons, but the ones above are easily sufficient to stop resolutions from succeeding.

So what are we to do? The 6 Changes Method solves these problems:

1. We only focus on one habit change at a time, so our focus and energies aren’t spread thinly.
2. We implement the habit changes gradually, so we don’t run out of steam.
3. We start out really, really easily, so it isn’t intimidating.
4. We focus on enjoyable activities, so we don’t need “discipline”.
5. We have two months to do the habit change, so if something comes up, it’s but a small bump in the road. And because we’re publicly committed, we’re going to get back on track.
6. We have a very specific plan with actions built in, using proven habit change techniques.

If you stick with the method, you’ll do much better than you’ve done in the past with New Year’s Resolutions.