It’s just so frustrating, isn’t it. You want to change something, you start doing it – and then you just stop. Over and over and over again. I know I am not the only one who’s been through that circle again and again and it’s definitely an absolute classic when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. Right about now, I assume, you either succeeded or you’ve stopped doing what you promised yourself at the beginning of the year. Right? Well, I know I did. Or, well, I am currently in limbo. I guess that’s the reason why I am writing this article.

Because, you see, in theory it’s so simple. But why isn’t it working out practically?

What is a habit to begin with?

It always helps me trying to visualise things. Knowing what I am dealing with is a great motivator in finding a solution or grasping understanding. So imagine your brain as a little ant colony. Thousands of important places that are connected with little paths fully of a loooot of tiny busy bees- ah, ants. Now imagine some places, that they have to go to often. Daily. Several times a day. A central spot. How will those paths look? Broad, well-kept. Easily accessible with lots of traffic. Now imagine something that they don’t have to go to very often. Maybe, because it’s something super situational. Or – something very new. How does that path look like? Shit. There might not even be one yet. It’ll be time-consuming, they might get lost on their way there and it’ll cost lots and lots of energy to get there.

Do you see where I am going with this? It’s exactly the same thing with habits. A habit is a well-traversed road. It’s so known to your brain, that it manages the task blind-folded and with literally no effort or expense of energy at all. But once you start something new, something you’re not used to, it’s like creating an entirely new road. And this takes time and motivation and effort.

How do you start a habit?

Now, there are lots and lots of studies about this and there’s a general ideal of new habits taking around three weeks to form – but that’s quite oversimplified. Some take shorter, some longer – it’s, well… it kind of depends on how long your road has to be. Or how overgrown the jungle is you have to tackle and machete your way through. Or, to throw a random German idiom at you: how difficult it is to defeat your [innerer Schweinehund]¹. But some key stages are always found at the studies’ cores:

• You need something that triggers the new behaviour
• You need a motivational force that pushes it forward
• You need to respond to and do the new behaviour
• You need a benefit or reward from what you just did

That’s four stages, four possibilities where your new habit could fail – so it’s important to make those fool-proof in a way that works for you. Manipulate cues so they trigger the motivation reliably, or fiddle around to see what reward you give yourself gives you the biggest push.

What are some tips to help with a habit?

Personally, I find it really helpful to be really specific. It doesn’t help me to say “I’ll eat more fruit.” – no, I have to break it apart in a way that I can’t wiggle myself out of, such as “I will eat one piece of fruit with my breakfast and one piece of fruit as an afternoon snack.” That’s specific. No room for excuses.

Some habits take quite some time to show results, so it’s helpful to track your progress in intervals. It’s easy to give up if you don’t have previous-day-you to compare yourself against. This can also work nicely as a reminder to do the new habit! Having support around you can help – but not for everyone. I profit more from doing things isolated, rather than sharing things outright. See, what works for you!

The by far biggest revelation for me, however, was: Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. It is way, way too easy to fail your new behaviour once and immediately feel like a failure. Or by overcome by the (I am sure you know) classic “Oh well I didn’t learn German yesterday on Monday, so now I have to wait until next Monday, to keep it nice and organised”. Or be sad if you only reached part of your goal. So if you need to hear this: if you only walked 1.000 steps today instead of the 10.000 you planned to – that’s awesome. Because you still did it. And it’s better than nothing. Look at this, you’ve already paved parts of the new road. Keep doing this, and one day, you’ll realise that it’s there and suddenly so easy to walk.

You can do this.

P.S.: I don’t recall why I choose a mix of berries as the cover picture for this, but I keep staring at it and I just know what will end up being in my cart when I’ll hop to the shop later. Nom.

[Picture by Nanxi Wei – Thank you!]

1. Der innere Schweinehund – “innen” (internal), “Schwein” (pig) + “Hund” (dog) – yes, it’s literally your internal pig-dog. It’s the moster we blame for a lack of motivation and the thing we have to conquer in order to do something we don’t want to do. ↩︎