If you are reading this blog, you already know the importance of setting goals and of having a plan to reach these goals. That’s the easy part. Essential but easy part, which is called the planning phase. Once the planning phase is established, you need to move to Actions.
For example, your goal is to lose 10 lbs. And your plan, to achieve this goal, is to work out 3 times per week and to intentionally eat veggies first at each meal. Now is time for actions ! And if you are like me and actually most of us, the first days, or even the first weeks, you are all excited, you are all pumped up, you are super motivated. You hit the gym hard, you go even more than 3 times a week and you eat plenty of veggies. But then, life happens. You are tired, work is stressing you out, you go to a party with friends and eat there a lot of junk food,….Life….You start to feel discouraged. Your morale goes down, and you start to think : “well, maybe losing 10 lbs is not a good target for me. Maybe I am meant to be a little bit overweight….”. Doubts start to cripple and gain territory in your mind.
Well, breaking news, it is normal ! We all, absolutely all of us, go through that phase. And there is a reason for that : motivation is not unlimited. At some point, for a reason or another, you will run out of motivation. And then suddenly, your good plans are going to sink.
But I have a good news. There is a hack to that 😉
The hack consists on implementing a system instead of relying on your motivation. If your goals rely only on your motivation, you will, at some point, get exhausted, tired and burn out. But if your goals rely on a system, then, even when you are tired, you will still act on your plan.
The system consists on reducing frictions. The system consists on making the habits easy. For example, my habit is to go to the local YMCA every morning at 5:00 am to swim a distance of 0.5 mile. What I have observed is that most evenings, I am all motivated about the idea to start my day with a nice swim. But in the morning, it is a different story. Waking up at 4:45 to go in cold water in the middle of winter is not fun at all !!! So I have failed, and failed and failed again at implementing this habit. Until….I implemented the “less friction possible” system into this habit.
What did I do ? I thought all the things that would make this habit as easy as possible. Think about it, when you see a jar of cookies on the kitchen table, you will most likely grab one. Why ? because it is there. It is easy to do. If the cookies were in a closed package, in the pantry, located in the basement; the chances for you to eat a cookie would be much smaller.
So here is what I did :
The night before, I prepare the followings ; my swimming suit, my goggles and my bag with changing clothes. The swimming suit and the goggles are on a chair just in front of the bed. The rest of my clothes to put over are also on the chair and easy to put on : short or workout pants, tee-shirt, sweatshirt. My phone is on my night stand with wireless headphones close by. I fill in a bottle of water on my kitchen table. My car keys and wallet are ready on the kitchen table. All that is ready the night before.
Then the morning comes, I wake up, put my headphones on and put on some nice quiet music that helps me to wake up. I put my swimming trunk on, goggles around my neck and then the rest of the workout clothes. I am not thinking about anything. Grab my bag, my keys and wallet, and my bottle of water on my way to the car parked in the driveway. As I am driving, I drink my water which helps to wake me up.
The result is that most mornings, when I start swimming, I am still in the process of waking up. I didn’t have to fight against a lot of obstacles, a lot of frictions. I am in the pool without thinking about it.
I have realized that the make or break step is putting on the swimming suit. If I put it on, 100% of the time go to the pool. So the only thing I have to concentrate on in the morning is to put the swimming suit on. And I make it so easy and obvious that it is such an easy step. The suit is in front of my eyes when I wake up, accessible and ready.
That’s the key. Don’t rely on your motivation. Rely on a system. Understand and identify the key step in the process. And make that step so easy and obvious that you won’t skip it, and the rest of the system will follow.
Then, you have a new habit integrated to your life, making you better, wiser, kinder, stronger,…
Motivation is overrated.
Your Successful Habits Coach, Anthony Perdrix
