Small wins fuel transformative changes by leveraging tiny advantages into patterns that convince people that bigger achievements are within reach.
Charles Duhigg (born 1974) is an American journalist and non-fiction author. He is the author of two books on habits and productivity, titled The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and Smarter Faster Better. In 2013, Duhigg was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.
Research indicates that doctors have a hard time convincing overweight people to make sweeping changes to their lifestyles, or to help smokers give up their damaging habit. Personally, I have been both overweight and a smoker and I can vouch that changing both of these aspects of my life was not a simple process.
The sheer scale of what I wanted to achieve seemed enormous. However, I was able to overcome both challengers with the help of some books, support from friends and family and a small dose of willpower.
When I read self help books these days, I can see the similar concepts and ideas that worked for me.
One small step
One idea that particularly resonates with me is the idea that one small change, successfully negotiated, can lead to other positive habits. When I was 19, I decided it was time to quit smoking. After speaking to a friend, I decided to see how many days I could carry a full packet of cigarettes around with me without lighting up. One, two, three days went by and with each day I crossed out another day on the calendar. This carried on for a few months until I eventually realised that I could throw the offending, and somewhat ragged, pack of Silk Cut in the bin.
What was more interesting was that because I had stopped smoking, I was feeling better about myself and had starting exercising, in particular running and challenging myself to run one, two then five miles. I had somehow managed to link the habit of ticking another day off the self-imposed smoking ban, with running an additional half mile each week.
As a result, running lead me to focus more on
healthy living and I started to eat more healthily, which in turn helped me to resist the urge for a cigarette even more.
As Duhigg points out in his book, I had exhibited the exact idea that by developing one habit (not smoking in my case), other positive habits started to manifest themselves. Duhigg described these as ‘keystone habits’, which have the power to create or unlock a cascade of positive behavioural changes.
According to Duhigg, this chain reaction that caused a beneficial ripple effect in my life has three distinct characteristics.
Habit stacking
Another great book to read (or listen to if, like me, this is your preference) regarding habits is Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book came highly recommended to me and initially I have to say it was something of a mixed experience. However, as I got further into it, there were certain parts, which totally resonated with me, to do with the concept of habit stacking.
We all have strong and embedded habits that we take for granted each day. For example, you probably don’t have to think about making that first cup of tea, or remembering to take a shower each morning. These habits have been embedded over so many years that they become second nature and you can use this strong connection to build new habits. The way to do this is to take your current habit and simply stack the new habit on top. Examples could be things like:
One could argue that flossing, going for a run or drinking water with your meal are all perfectly good things to do and thus should be doable in any event. However, the reason habit stacking works so well is that your current habits you are linking to are already built into your brain. By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built, you make it far more likely that you will develop the new habits you are seeking to embed.
It doesn’t stop there. Once these new behaviours are embedded, you can insert new habits into your current routines. For example, between going to bed and putting your running shoes by the door, you could decide on the run you intend to complete the next day and set it up on your phone app.
This time of year, if your January new year resolutions have drifted off course, or you simply want to make a positive change – why not look into the idea of habit stacking or making a small but significant change to get the ball rolling.
Until next month.