Streaks

This week’s Brain Food newsletter had this little gem and it got me thinking about how this tactic has been successful for me over the past 20 years.

Here is something counterintuitive: it’s easier to do something daily rather than a few times a week.

For example, last March, I started going to the gym. I told myself I would go three days a week. And that worked for a few weeks, but then I found myself slacking off. Since I was only going three days a week, it was easy to tell myself I didn’t have to go today - I could go tomorrow instead.

As someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy going to the gym, going tomorrow always sounded better than going today. Within a month, I stopped going to the gym altogether.

I needed a new approach. One that didn’t involve willpower. I made a rule to go to the gym every single day. And that subtle change made all the difference.

Doing something every day turns desired behavior into default behavior.

When willpower is lacking, routine takes over.

– Brain Food newsletter 2023/01/15

To some degree I’m sure everyone has a different take on how to best change their behavior/habits – different stuff works for different people. But for me what Parrish mentions above is what I’ve found usually works pretty well. For example, twenty-plus years ago I wanted to reduce how much soda I drank. The only way I could really do it was to completely quit rather than just “cut back.” Same for not eating meat and all the other little experiments I’ve done over the years (just ask my wife, who sometimes gets annoyed at all the weird life hacks I’m willing to try out).

A huge motivator for me is to get a streak going. For example, if I haven’t had a soda for 80 days there’s really no way I’m going to mess that up by having one on day 81. If I did, then I would surely have one on day 82 since, “Why not, I had one yesterday.” Again, for me, momentum is a key factor (if not the factor) in motivation and habit formation.