To achieve big goals start with small habits

We always have a crisis in handling our time. We always do not have time and/or energy to do all the things we want in a day.

When you review your crisis and realise that you need to change some habit to improve the situation, we make ambitious plans. eg:

sweet lover decides to avoid sweets totally, switching off the emails by 6 pm when earlier it was being attended to day and night, improve fitness by joining a gym and exercising for 45 minutes.

When we want to achieve the behavioural change we make big goals. Big goals are more difficult than motivational. they require extraordinary effort and need to be sustained in our busy lives. Falling short of the goal creates a negative spiral of discouragement and we find ourselves locked in a self-defeating cycle.

The way to achieve big goals is to start small - micro habits. Micro habits are components of the larger habit. By breaking it up into smaller tasks that you sustain over long periods, they help you complete the big goals. 

This is not something new. We have always been rewarded for thinking big not small. We may feel ridiculous doing something so small that might not seem worthwhile and so we talk ourselves out of it at the start.

But even a small shift in our routines is harder than one might imagine. Any changes in our routine and ingrained behaviours are difficult. Big behavioural changes are unlikely to happen overnight else it would have happened long ago.

FIve steps to get started

Identify a ridiculously small micro habit:

Let's say read a book at night for one hour before sleep.

Break it down to smaller habits you might say 30 min, 15 min and so on. You would truly reach a micro habit when you say "that's so ridiculously small that it is not worth doing" eg: read a paragraph every night. Aim for small.

Piggyback on a daily task:

The benefit of micro habit is that you should be able to do it with minimal effort every day. Execute a daily ritual so that it becomes second nature and if it is small enough you would not be tempted to postpone it for the next day.

However, it is easy to get distracted, make excuses and forget. Perform the new action at the same time that you do another task without thinking ie., piggyback on a daily task. 

Track your progress:

What gets measured gets done.

If you have a detailed yardstick for measurement then surely you are less likely to complete it. Make it simple "Y" or "N" list. List down the new tasks every day and tick off the tas1ks that you have done for the day. It takes very little time and over a period you will discover trends or patterns in their yes No list.

Hold steady for a long time:

It is hard to think small, to begin with, and it is even harder to stay small. After reading a paragraph every night for 1 week in a row, you increase it to a page, and two days later you increase it to 10 pages and after 10 days you jump to 50 pages. The result - after 4 weeks you have stopped reading anything at night. You have enlarged your goals unrealistically fast. Do a microtask long enough when you feel bored with it for at least 10 days in a row and then increase it only by 10%.

Seek help in holding you accountable.

Form a group of people to support you and hold you accountable and this, in turn, can trigger new behaviours and help them in return. When someone consistently fails to complete his micro task, the group further refines the task and help remove obstacles to its completion. The simple act of accounting for not achieving the microtask can be a motivator and ensure its completion.

When you want to change behaviour make tiny small incremental adjustments until they are part of your memory. 

By starting small you can attain big results.

To Achieve Big Goals, Start with Small Habits by Sabina Nawaz

HBR January 20, 2020