High achievers often struggle with creating new habits.
Why? Because, high performers tend to have a perfectionist mindset and rely heavily on self-control and willpower to try and accomplish their habits.
But here’s the problem, you can't approach the creation of new habits in the same way you approach projects or tasks. Habit formation is less about accomplishing and more about integrating a behavior into your daily life. It's less about the end goal and more about the journey, the process. It requires patience, consistency, and a mindful approach.
It’s similar to how power lifters approach rock climbing. A power lifter, accustomed to using brute strength to lift heavy weights, will approach rock climbing in the same manner. They might attempt to scale the wall by pulling themselves up forcibly, neglecting the importance of foot placement, balance, and maneuvering techniques that are crucial in rock climbing.
Secondly, THINGS DON'T ALWAYS GO AS PLANNED: Life is unpredictable and there can be many reasons why you might not be able to stick to your habits like you planned for the day. Here are three examples:
- Unexpected Workload: You might have an unexpected workload that requires you to work late, leaving you with no time or energy to exercise or cook a healthy meal.
- Health Issues: You might fall sick or have a minor injury that prevents you from following through with your habits. For example, you may not be able to go for your daily run if you have a sprained ankle.
- Family and Personal Obligations: Unexpected family or personal obligations can also disrupt your routine. You might have to pick up your sick child from school or attend to a family emergency, which can throw your planned habits off-track.
WHY IT MATTERS
- Relying solely on self-control and willpower, inevitably leads to exhaustion, disappointment, and ultimately, failure.
- Assuming that perfection is the only way to accomplish your habit is an unsustainable mindset, likely leading to failure.
So far, this series has focused on improving your approach to integrating habits into your life. However, we haven't yet discussed how to handle a day that doesn't go as planned.
This is where the sliding scale of doable comes in.
THE SLIDING SCALE OF DOABLE: A technique to keep your habits alive when your day doesn’t go as planned.
For every habit you are forming, you can adjust the difficulty level.
Here are four common methods to increase or decrease difficulty.
- Increase Intensity: Lifting more weight in your next training session.
- Increase Volume: Doing more reps, sets or exercises for a certain muscle group in your next training.
- Increase Frequency: Doing more training sessions than the week before.
- Increase Tension: Increasing the duration of each repetition within an exercise. A common technique in bodybuilding is to prolong the time under tension (TUT) of a muscle by focusing on a 4-second descent (eccentric) when you do a bicep curl for example.
The Sliding Scale of Doable suggests that you can adjust your habits to maintain consistency. While the aim is to achieve the set goal, there will be days when you have more or less time to accomplish it. Keep your streak alive to accommodate to real life happening.
more tomorrow,
Hunter