Creating a Habit of Success

I’ve been reading a book (well actually several) about habits. The reason this subject peaked my interest is that at the start of lockdown I started running every morning. I’ve done running streaks before so this is not so unusual, but making the run the first thing I do in the morning is fairly new for me and it appears to have become a habit. It’s now something that I just do without thinking and can’t quite function as well if I don’t do it at all.

There have been occasional days when the runs didn’t happen (scheduling, extremely awful weather or recovery from an extended weekend run) but generally speaking, I have run between 6-12km every day for what now feels like several months. It is in fact about four months, so about 120 days.

The running I am doing what is known as Maffetone Training – very low heart rate running. That means barely more than a walk, rarely more than a very light jog in order to keep my HR very much in the green zone. For most people this is painfully slow and at first I had to really challenge myself not to get lost in the run and speed up. To combat this early on, I started listening to podcasts and audiobooks, which don’t have the same giddy-up effect as pumping dance tunes.

The other important thing I did before embarking on this new regime was to change my Garmin watch to show me ONLY my heart rate and never my pace. I am a fairly resilient person but as a slow runner, I find the constant pressure from a judgemental bit of electronics sneering at me to go faster really discouraging, so I removed that barrier. It means that my runs are usually around 50-90 minutes long each day, but it doesn’t matter because I have no pressure to go faster and the low intensity means no injury. I come back from each run feeling refreshed and smug (obvs), having also thought through and mapped out my day. It’s become the most essential and invigorating part of my morning and it doesn’t seem to require much thought or preparation on my part. 

Unknowingly, I created an environment for myself that makes it as easy as possible to do a really positive, healthy bit of outdoor exercise every single day with very little reason to resist. I get up, have a coffee, whack on my running gear, stick a book in my ears and walk out the door at more or less the same time each day. I walk for the first 500 metres then pick up a really light jog. I run the same route every day, varying it only by adding an extra loop or two in the middle depending on the distance. If I am tired I go even slower. I don’t have to think about any aspect of the run because it’s the same routine every day. I just do it without making a conscious decision to do any of it. It is as habitual as brushing my teeth.

Habit, Discipline and Motivation

You’ll read a lot of articles online about how discipline beats motivation every time, which is true. Motivation will wax and wane depending on your mood – you cannot manufacture motivation. Discipline is about training until something becomes a drill. Discipline is what you use when motivation escapes you, and when you don’t even think about it anymore you know that habit has taken over.

There are varying arguments about how long it takes to create a habit, but it depends on what the habit is you are trying to form. It also depends on what level of reward you feel for that action. There is actually no magic formula for this.

Making Consistency a Habit

The reason I bring this all up is because consistency is one of the most important success factors of running a small business. Not doing something that you know will benefit your business because you find it hard work means you haven’t found a way to make it habitual and it probably still feels too ‘big’. The more you do something the easiest it becomes. Muscle memory (the body and the brain) takes over.  The less you have to actively engage in doing it, the easier it is to repeat regularly. That is the key to creating positive habits.

When you are thinking about tasks you know you need to do for your business, but somehow put off because they feel like a massive big deal, can you find ways to reduce friction in the process? So that it becomes easy to achieve and requires less and less decision-making the more frequently you perform the task. 

How to set yourself up for success:

• Can you plan it at the same time each day? 
• Write down the process so it becomes quick to flow through it?
• Prepare anything in advance?
• Duplicate aspects to speed up the process?
• Ensure your workspace is always ready?
• Allow time to bask in the feeling of accomplishment as the reward after it’s done?

At first new tasks will require motivation, then when that runs out you have to rely on discipline. Then if you create the right environment for yourself and reduce friction, eventually it will become a habit and you will do it without even deciding to. Then you know you’ve cracked it, created a positive habit and you can reserve your decision making energy for something new and more exciting.