First You Make Your Habits, Then Your Habits Make you.
“Saying I’ma make new habits is my new habit, not doing it’s my old one”.
Marlon Craft & Yusei. Pavement. Space.
Hello again, my friend.
I wanted to talk to you about habits, and wanted to share some things I’ve learned. Maybe you’ll find it interesting.
I’ve totally been nerding out about it. I read James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” as well as BJ Fogg’s book “Tiny Habits”. Both really good books.
One concept I learned was ‘habit stacking’, which is where you pair a new habit you’re trying to build with an already existing one. When I do X, then I’ll also do Y. For example, when I go to the bathroom to pee, then I’ll drink a glass of water. This one is genius, by the way, because the more you drink water, the more you need to pee, making it very easy to stay hydrated. In the house I used to live, we also had a toilet tax. The price of admission to use the toilet was 5 pull-ups on a bar conveniently located in the entrance.
BJ Fogg talks about making the habits you’re trying to build as easy as possible. Instead of aiming to floss every day, just flossing one tooth counts as a success. Of course, it’s rare that if you floss the first tooth you won’t continue with the rest, but often the first step is the most difficult. If you want to meditate every day, just aim to take one mindful breath. If you want to do yoga every day, then just aim for one sun salutation, or even simpler, just stand on the edge of your mat. It helps to reduce as much friction as possible. If your yoga mat is tucked away in your cupboard you’re much less likely to do it than if you lay out your mat and prepare your clothes the night before. With the meditation example, having your headphones charged and on your bedside table, and your guided meditation already downloaded makes it easier in the morning. It can be tempting to try and attach loads of new habits throughout your day. I obviously thought I could build like twelve habits at once. Was I successful? Not even close! I have pretty much the same amount of habits in place as I did a year ago. I was trying to do too much! If I had aimed to just build one habit per month, I’d have them all locked in by now.
Since more than half of the habits on my list are all part of my morning routine, the most important one for me to focus on first is getting up at 5:30am. If I hit snooze and sleep in until the last minute, all the other habits don’t stand a chance! I can’t stretch or meditate before work if I’m jumping out of bed and rushing out the door with a toothbrush in my mouth.
Getting up early is a ‘domino habit’, which is another concept I learned. It’s the first action required to trigger a series of events. To complicate things more though, getting up early is actually the last in another chain of events. Let me explain.
Working backwards, to get up on time I need to go to bed on time and get a good sleep. That in itself takes a lot of work. I’ve always been someone who has prioritised getting 8 hours of sleep, but even still, I have spent a lot of time and energy focused on making my sleep as good quality as possible. Important to remember is that time in bed does not equal time asleep. Getting 8 hours of sleep a night means more like 9 hours in bed. I also try to keep my bed for only two things; sex and sleep. If your bed is also where you sit on your laptop, watch movies, eat snacks or doom scroll, your subconscious will associate that space with other things. To help your sleep, it’s also important to control the light in your room. It should be as dark as possible, preferably with blackout curtains. Or the cheaper option, which I use, is an eye mask and ear plugs. Having a set bed time is very important, as this helps your body clock. Oh and if you really want to nerd out, in the evenings you can dim all the lights in your house and have them below eye level. Thanks Mr Huberman for that wisdom! What I do before I go to bed is also really important. I found a cool system called the 3-2-1 method that really helps: no food 3 hours before bed, no liquids 2 hours before bed and no screens 1 hour before bed. If you’re like me and your brain goes into hyperdrive when there’s no external stimulation, you may find writing in a journal helps empty your mind before sleeping. Oh, I also try to not have any caffeine 8 hours before bedtime. Caffeine has quite a long half life, so if you drink coffee late in the afternoon, it can affect your sleep. Trust me, this is not easy for someone who works in a coffee roastery!
All of a sudden, it’s a lot more complicated than it first appeared on paper, but I feel like I’m getting somewhere and starting to understand this stuff better.
I found that it really helped me to write down any excuses for not doing the habit. Try to not judge yourself. By addressing the friction points you can aim to reduce them. For example, I often found myself skipping a lot of my morning workouts because of the bitter cold of Melbourne winter. To fix this, I started putting my gym clothes under the covers with me before I slept so that when I woke up I could get dressed and ready before leaving the warmth of my bed.
In terms of tracking the habits, that’s also a habit in itself. I’ve used various methods, from manually writing them on paper to apps and digital spreadsheets. All work, if used correctly. I currently track them with Notion, but the important thing is to actually track them so you know how you’re doing. Then you can review your progress regularly and adjust if you need to. If you didn’t take a single cold shower this month, it’s probably not a habit you’re going to stick to. Also, don’t believe all of those reels on social media about peoples 4am morning routines where they start their day running naked backwards on a treadmill at full speed, listening to a different audiobook in each ear while eating protein powder straight from the tub. Be realistic with your expectations.
As you can probably tell I could talk about this stuff for ages, but I’ll leave it there for now. Let me know if you have any questions though!
Big hugs,
Ben.