MB #007: 3 Tips To Building Lasting Habits

Read time: ~4 Minutes

Hey friends,

Recently I conducted some research to find out what dads were struggling with the most when it came to their health and fitness journey.

As is always the case, there are several reasons why men struggle (myself included), but it became clear (from ~60% of dads) that one of the big rocks to address, is the struggle to develop new habits and break the old bad ones.

The reality is if we can't develop a habit around a healthy behavior (and break the bad ones) then it's just not going to last, and consistency is the primary driver behind any healthy man's journey to get there.

There are many factors that go into building habits, but I'm going to address a few today that will hopefully move the needle a lot for you as you work to improve this year.

Choose an entry-level habit

An entry-level habit is my way of describing a habit that is the dumbed-down version of what your desired end-state habit is. I was describing this on LinkedIn the other day, and it's called the two-minute rule. Pick an entry-level version of your desired habit that can be completed in less than two minutes.

For example, I often hear “I just need to build the habit of working out, but I know for sure I need to exercise"

I challenge those men to just spend 60 days executing and building the habit of doing 20 push-ups a day. Yup...Just 20 pushups. That's it.

You can do them rain or shine, sore or fresh, with a head cold, any time of the day, anywhere on the planet, etc.

You’ll look up in 60 days and have cast a vote each day for becoming the kind of person who exercises daily and has a habit of working out.

Expand your workout habit from there. Which is exactly what we'll talk about next.

Establish before improving

This tip is similar to the above in regards to simplicity, but it's the idea that you need to establish a habit and have it become automatic before you attempt to improve upon it.

If your goal is to journal every day, make it your goal to create the habit of writing 2-3 sentences each day, and then just simply write 2 sentences. They don't have to be profound, deep, or even important sentences. The goal is that you're sitting down putting pen to paper and making a habit of taking that regular action. If you analyze it, pick it apart, and try to improve it, you'll end up making it more complex and create friction between you and the action.

Spend 60 days writing crap in your journal, then you can improve your crap.

Environment

Lastly, craft your environment to serve you. The goal here is again to create less friction.

Let's use a reading goal as an example. Perhaps I have a goal to read 52 books this year, 1 per week. That's a BIG goal. But what if I also want this habit to replace an existing bad habit that I have of scrolling my phone at night?

The first thing we want to do is choose an entry level-goal that can be done in less than 2 minutes, such as reading 1-2 pages daily.

The next thing you want to do is to craft your environment to help trigger the new behavior and prevent the old one.

• This could be placing the book out on the side table by the couch where you usually scroll each night.

• You could use the time limits feature on your iPhone so that it reminds you that you've already been on social too much today.

• You could place several books all over the living room as visual triggers.

• Or you could take a picture of the book you want to finish reading and save it as the home screen and lock screen wallpaper on your phone so you see it every time you pick it up.

There are lots of ways to craft your environment depending on the habit, so spend some time thinking through this and get creative, and cater appropriately to your weaknesses and strengths.

Take action on getting some of these things sorted this week and you'll be off to the races!

-Chris