It’s not enough to simply know something. I know what foods are good for me, but unless I eat them, my knowledge doesn’t accomplish much. It’s not enough to do it sometimes. To make a permanent change, it must become ingrained and automatic.
Relying on emotion is a recipe for disaster. If I waited to do things until I felt like it, I’d probably seldom get round to any of them. So I need to keep my feelings out of the equation. The real question is, how do I make this thing that I want to do regular and virtually automatic?
One of the secrets of successful habit creation is something that kids love—an activity called piggybacking.
You choose an activity you do already on a daily basis and team up your desired new habit with it. After a short time, it becomes something you don’t have to think about. It’s just the way things happen.
When you wake up you put on your running shoes while you drink your first glass of water.
As you reach into the fridge for something you always pull out during your breakfast ritual, you reach for some green smoothie ingredients as well.
When you turn on your computer, you get yourself a glass of water. Or you sit perfectly straight, close your eyes and mini-meditate for the moments it takes the computer to boot up.
Of course you could overwhelm yourself by trying to pair every little automatic habit with a new one, and that would accomplish exactly nothing. But just one thing? That’s doable.
The strength of this way of adding good habits is that you don’t have to feel like doing it. Whoever decides on a daily basis that they feel like brushing their teeth? We all just do it because it’s part of our procedure.
Make it simple to remember your paired activity. When you shut down your computer, put your water glass in front of the keyboard. Lay out your gym clothes the night before. Have the blender on the kitchen bench and most of your smoothie ingredients in a container in the fridge.
Let’s make this as easy as possible for ourselves. If it’s easy, we’ll do it.