“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Habits shape our life.  Bad habits can wreck us and good habits can improve our life trajectory.  Creating new habits is simple, but not easy. As a lifelong learner I love to experiment on myself and often try new things through new habits, routines, and practices.  This article describes how I successfully create new habits, and offers you encouragement to do the same.

Create Identity-Based Habits
Who do you want to become and what new behaviors do you need to support this identity? Someone who is Kindhearted? Powerful? Creative? Godly? We are what we consistently do.

Once you’ve determined who you want to be, use that information to decide on habits that support your identity vs. creating a certain outcome. For example:
– I am a lifelong athlete and runner – I will run 5 times per week.
– I am strong – I will do strength training daily.
– I am a good friend – I will review my friend list and make contact no less than every other week.
– I am a good steward with what God has entrusted me with – I will download and categorize every financial transaction daily.

There is more at stake when you tie the habit to your identity. And every time you complete a new habit you are casting votes for your new identity.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits says “When your behavior and your identity are fully aligned, you are no longer pursuing behavior change. You are simply acting like the type of person you already believe yourself to be.” He says, “The process of building habits is actually the process of becoming yourself.”

Choose ridiculously small habits.

If a goal is too daunting, you can get demotivated and give up before we ever start. That’s why whenever I want to create a new habit, I make it so small I can’t help but complete it. For instance, I want to be strong, but I don’t really enjoy lifting weights. So rather than create a habit of lifting weights two to three times per week for 30 minutes, my habit is to do some strength training — any strength training — every day. Usually this includes things like 50 kettlebell swings with a 40 lb. kettlebell or 50 push-ups. Each of these can be completed in about one minute. Can I find an extra minute in my day? Yes. Can you find an extra minute in your day? Absolutely.

Once the habit is formed you can then modify and extend it to something larger if you want to. But you can’t improve a habit unless it is a habit. The key is to design a habit so small that you can’t help but complete it.

Think daily as opposed to weekly.

It’s better to shoot for daily habits vs. weekly habits, and here’s why: Habits are created through repetition. The more times you do something, the faster it will cement into a new habit. It’s simple math: after six weeks you will perform a daily habit about 34 times, assuming you perform the habit 80% of the time (more on this later). For a habit you aim to do three times per week, you will perform this only 21 times, and that’s if you never miss. See the difference?

Aim to be a B- student.

You must be realistic when trying to create new habits. So, rather than setting a goal of, say, 100% daily compliance, how about understanding that you will sometimes miss a day or two, and giving yourself grace when that happens. If you aim for seven days a week but only manage five or six, that’s still an 80% success rate, which is huge. (Beast!) But try not to miss two days in a row, because research shows we are most inclined to do today whatever we did yesterday. In other words, if you performed a new habit yesterday, you’re inclined to do it again today. But if you missed yesterday, you’re inclined to miss another day.

Cue it!

The cue is the thing that will remind you to perform your new habit. This can be your running clothes sitting out, an alarm, a reminder, a calendar entry, a sticky note on your mirror, or the completion of another habit. It can be anything that prompts you to perform this new task, and it needs to be obvious otherwise you will simply forget.

My favorite cue is to stack habits on or near other habits that are already ingrained in my day. For example, when I started taking a probiotic in the morning I placed the pills next to my deodorant. Putting on deodorant is a habit that I never miss, which makes it easier to never miss taking my probiotic. Also, I drink coffee every morning automatically. So, I often place new habits around my morning coffee routine. I wanted to drink more water so I told myself “Water before coffee,” and made sure a water bottle is next to my coffee stuff.

Let it take however long it takes.

Some people think there’s a magic number when it comes to creating new habits — 21 days to your goal! Get ripped in a week! Lose 10 pounds before the holidays! Etc. But, some habits come easier than others, and not giving yourself enough time is a surefire way to sabotage yourself. The important thing is to keep moving forward day after day focused on your identity and the person you are becoming. Small daily habits are the bridge between where you are and where you want to be. Slow and steady wins the race. Always.

Seek accountability.

I use HabitShare to record and track my habits and it has been a game changer. It’s a super simple free iPhone app. You create your habits in the app, invite a friend, and then share each habit (or selective habits) with your friend. Every time you update the app, your friend gets a notification and vice versa. The app allows you to look back and see how you are doing and it calculates your completion rate. I’m 100% on my daily Bible study habit (an 81-day streak!). Seeing those numbers keeps me motivated. But I’m only 63% on my journaling and writing habit, and seeing that number keeps me motivated too, motivated to do better.

If you don’t have a friend that you can share with please choose me! Invite me through the app and share your habits with me. I’ll give you encouragement!

Take a risk and make your habit public.

Tell a friend, tell your family, tell your co-workers. Tell them, for example, that you are going to write and publish one article per week for 52 weeks regardless of progress or feedback (this is #3). Or tell them you have a dream of running 100 miles and plan to do it in 2025. When you share your dreams and goals, people will ask you about them, motivating you to keep your word.

Be in good company.

We become who we hang out with, so choose your friends wisely. Want to become a lifelong cyclist, hang out with cyclists. Want to remove cursing from your vocabulary, hang out with people who don’t swear. The Bible has a lot to say on this:
– Proverbs 22:24-25 Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared.
– 1 Corinthians 15:33 Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.

When you choose your friends today, you are choosing your habits tomorrow.

Make hard habits easier.

There are some habits that are harder than others to get going. For me that has been journaling. I have been wanting to develop a daily writing habit and have journaled off and on for years. I have tried different methods and strategies and most recently pledged to make it happen for real this time. A friend and author introduced me to Morning Pages from the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. With Morning Pages you hand-write three pages of whatever comes to your mind first thing in the morning. These Morning Pages have been life changing for her and many authors, so I decided to give them a try.

But the journal I’d planned to use is a large format journal with large pages, and three pages is a lot to fill. So I changed the habit to one page per day, as opposed to three. With this modification, I have been able to keep this in my routine. New habits have to be easy and attractive in order to stick.

Teach it!

We learn best when we teach new skills to others. So figure out what habit methods work best for you and then teach them to your family, friends, or co-workers.

Pray.

On our own, we can only change so much. Ultimately true transformation happens in our hearts and that is God’s domain. So pray and ask God to mold you into the person He desires you to be. Seek His guidance on what new behaviors support your identity in Him. He can help, and He wants to.