Doing things is hard. But there are ways to make them less hard.
That’s the essence of Stephen Guise. On his website, he describes himself like this:
“Since I was born a slacker, I’ve needed superior strategies to live well. I’m still pretty lazy by nature, but my strategies are so effective that I’m productive every single day. Anyone can benefit from the strategies I teach, but those who aren’t type A workaholics may benefit the most from them. My first book, Mini Habits, was the culmination of 10 years of searching, experimentation, and research.”
If you have trouble getting things done (and let’s be real, who doesn’t?), you need to have systems in place that help you take action.
From effective goal setting, to smart rewards, to strategic changes to your environment, there are a lot of systems you can use. Stephen Guise focuses on one: mini habits.
The idea of mini habits is simple: big things are hard to do, but small things are easy to do. Small, everyday habits are the key to success. But behind the simple concept of little habits is a lot of very intelligent and counterintuitive psychology.
(By the way, this is a message that resonates; over 8,500 people have signed up for the Mini Habits course on Udemy.)
Table of Contents
What Makes Mini Habits Effective?
The power of mini habits is that they focus on the one factor that actually matters: consistency.
A lot of systems have overblown promises. “How to change your life in just one minute!” is kind of a silly claim. But some mini habits really do only take one minute; the trick is that they take one minute per day. Consistency is key.
It doesn’t matter how much you sweat, how much weight you lift, or how sore you get if you never come back for day 2. One workout is not an exercise habit.
If you’re trying to write a book, it’s more effective to write 100 words a day than write 10,000 words in two days and burn out.
It’s easy to get excited by short-term goals, but focusing on long-term success is more effective. Making small changes in your life is the key to success.
So how do mini habits help you stay consistent?
1. They lower the stakes
If your goal is to work out for 2 hours every day, that time is going to loom over you. You’ll wake up on Saturday morning and thing “do I really have to do that today?” You start to look for ways to “get out of it.”
If your goal is to show up to the gym, it’s a lot easier to follow through. You can even show up and not work out, but I bet that once you get there you’ll do at least a little exercise.
Showing up is the first, and most important, step of building an exercise habit.
2. You can build on them
When I was teaching a friend to work out, I told him to start with one rep of one exercise. He said “but that won’t accomplish anything.”
This is a really common concern, but it misses the key power of mini habits. When you set your sights low, you often wind up doing more anyway. That one rep of one exercise often turns into a pleasant 30 minute workout, it just doesn’t need to for you to consider yourself successful.
The other point is that mini habits help you build your baseline habits. Even if you’re only doing a single push-up every day, you now have a dedicated time to exercise. That’s an incredibly powerful tool.
Once you’ve been executing on your mini habit for some time, you can easily scale it up. If it fits your goals, you might even reach the point of working out 2 hours per day (although that’s usually not necessary). Having the tiny habits makes it possible to develop bigger healthy fitness habits.
3. They’re easy to do
When you get home from work, you’re tired. You still need to make and eat dinner. You spent a whole day at the office and just need some time to relax. I’ve lived that life, and it’s sometimes hard to get the energy to work out.
But you can do one push-up.
Mini habits are easy to do, so they strip away fears or excuses. Not having enough time might be a valid excuse for skipping a two hour workout, but not a two second one.
Why Don’t People Talk About Small Habits?
If small habits are so powerful, why don’t more people use them?
Actually mini habits are quite popular: it’s just that not everyone calls them that.
The Seinfeld Technique was made popular by a now-famous Lifehacker article. In short: pick the action that best suits your goals. Do it every day, and mark an X on the calendar for every day you complete it. Don’t break the chain.
The technique even spawned a popular and very supportive subreddit, the X effect, for people working on their habits. A lot of time these are small habits; again, small habits are easier to stick with.
In The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson argues that just 10 minutes of work a day will compound over time and have massive pay-offs.
Stephen Guise adds a level of precision, approaching mini habits from a structured psychological perspective.
Challenges to Mini Habits
Mini habits are easier to do than huge actions, but there are still some challenges that need to be overcome.
1. How will this even help?
It is so, so easy to get overzealous and want to do more. It’s easy to think that a mini habit can’t possibly affect your life.
Remember: you can scale up eventually. I bet you’ve already tried (multiple times, even) to work out. I know I used to work out for 2 weeks and then stop for 6 months at a time. Start small, end big.
As you start, remember why this habit is important. Write down three reasons this goal is personally important to you, and focus on how you feel every day you successfully complete the habit.
2. It’s easy to not do
As Jeff Olson says in the The Slight Edge, it’s easy to take these small actions. But it’s also easy NOT to take them.
Because these actions are so small, it’s easy to think that skipping one day won’t make a difference. For mini habits, it will.
Don’t get me wrong; missing the occasional day isn’t a reason to get derailed and quit altogether. But the point of mini habits is to do them every day.
Mini habits are powerful because they are small enough that you can do them every day. Skipping days misses the whole point of a mini habit.
3. It’s easy to forget
When I started working on mini habits, I struggled for a simple, seemingly stupid reason: I forgot to do them.
The action is small. It’s something you can take care of quickly. And because of that, it’s easy to put off and think that you’ll take care of it later in the day. Until, like me, you wind up lying in bed with the realization that you forgot to do it at all.
There are a few ways to handle this. A common suggestion is to set an alarm reminder, which I’ve found to be marginally effective.
The method I recommend is setting aside a consistent time to do your action. If you do the action during the same part of every day, it truly becomes a habit.
When I recently began meditating, I didn’t just say “I’m going to meditate for 10 minutes every day.” I actually built it into my morning routine: brush teeth, shower, meditate, breakfast. Even though I’ve only been meditating for a month, I’m able to stay consistent because it’s become part of my day.
Pick a specific time and place to do your action to keep yourself from forgetting.
What to Do Next
First of all, definitely check out Stephen’s website. He has a ton of experience teaching and building mini habits, and there’s a lot to learn by reading his stuff.
Then, pick your mini habit. There is no universal list of good habits. Answer these questions to get mini habit ideas:
- What is your goal?
- Why is that goal important to you?
- What action can help you reach your goal?
- What’s the smallest version of that action?
- When will you do it?
Get started. You’ll be amazed by the results.
To get started on a healthy, consistent exercise routine, download my free guide and learn how to use psychology to stop skipping workouts.
You’ll also learn how to make the leap from motivation to habit with the free eBook “51 Fitness Motivation Tips.”
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