On Monday, I had an early doctor’s appointment that required me to be in town early. As a result, I wasn’t able to get to the gym first thing in the morning. It’s the first time in 2 months that I haven’t exercised first thing in the morning. It is a habit that I have maintained most days of the week for nearly 18 months. Missing my morning gym time felt weird, like skipping my morning coffee or shower. It’s become a normal part of my routine. It’s a habit. Missing it felt awkward.
I have been talking with my brother this month about his experiences going to the gym early in the morning for the first few weeks of January. He lives in a bigger city and has commented repeatedly on how crowded the gym has been, as droves of exercisers have started showing up in an effort to live out their New Year’s Resolutions.
We’ve talked at length about predictions from a research project that predicted that most people will quit their quests for self improvement by January 12th. Amazingly, by the beginning of the third week of the new year, traffic at his gym had returned to normal. The reason most folks give up on new behaviors has to do with the amount of energy they have to expend in order to engage in them. We have to put forth energy to do everything we do. What typically drives new behaviors, like the rush to hit the gym in the new year, is emotional energy. We get excited about getting fitter, having more energy, etc. When those efforts aren’t met with fast results, we tend to run out of emotional gas. Feelings can be fickle.
They rarely sustain long term change. This isn’t to say that there is no place for emotional motivations in life change. They can be powerful motivators. However, they cannot sustain new behavior and life change in the same way that habits do. A habit is a behavior that your brain automatically engages in. Most folks don’t have to talk themselves into brushing their teeth every morning or taking a shower because they are habitual behaviors. The cool thing about habits is that they don’t cost any willpower to engage in. The real trick to managing the resolution to exercise more or save money is to turn it into a habit.
I recently read that it takes 66 days before a new behavior becomes a habit. The 66th day of the year is March 7th. It’s a long way between January 12th and March 7th. It is necessary to utilize other motivational tricks and techniques if you’re going to manage sustained change. I don’t believe that folks who manage to go to the gym every day are better or have more willpower than everyone else. I think they just managed to pull themselves across the line that changes new behaviors into habits. This is the truth about eating healthier, spending more time with family, reading more, or any other efforts we put into new ways of living. In my experience, accountability is one of the best ways to establish new habits.
I have a few people I report to regularly about my progress with new behaviors. If I miss a day, they call me out for it and prevent a single missed repetition of a behavior from becoming a trend. I also set small goals every week. One such goal is tracking my daily and weekly exercise targets, which are tracked by my phone and watch. If I hit my targets, I feel some accomplishment that becomes an encouragement to work at it again tomorrow. This is important because the longer term goals are tough to remain excited about. It’s easy to get excited about something you can accomplish today. Most folks are different and require different encouragements to help them establish new habits and make changes to their lives. The trick is working at it and discovering things that work for you.
