Still Hanging On To Your New Year's Resolution? - Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of keeping your New Year's Resolution. Just to recap last week, we had the following items:

• Getting started - What is one thing you can do to make getting started easier?
• Set up your environment for success - What is one thing that you can do to reduce the effort of your good habits, and increase the effort for your bad habits?
• Take baby steps - Start small and build the habit then make it bigger. What is one baby step you can take that you can do consistently to build that habit?
• Habit stacking - Construct your own habit stack.
• Put in the reps - Just do it. 
• Have a plan - Determine what days, time of day and where those actions will take place. 

So let's get started with this week. 

Build If THIS, THEN THAT statement
In the movie, Jurassic Park, Dr. Malcolm played by Jeff Goldblum states, "Life finds a way." Often times it feels like life finds a way to get in the way of our goals. It is normally not a question of IF but WHEN it will happen. So it is helpful to come up with a contingency plan for how you are going to put in your reps, and do the work, before life happens. For example, my morning routine typically takes 60 minutes. But there are days where I don't have 60 minutes to complete the full version. Since I don't want to skip it altogether, I have created alternate versions of my morning routine that take 20 minutes. I even have one that takes only 6 minutes. Sure I could easily just skip it, but I find it is better to do the short version than no version. I know from my past experience, that if I start skipping days, that it will not be long before it is forgotten altogether. So build a contingency plan for your reps. Don't have 60 mins, what can you do in 20? If it is a weekly habit and you can't do it on Tuesday, do it Wednesday. Always try to find a way to put in the reps. Research shows that if you build your IF THIS, THEN THAT statement that you are 60% more likely to succeed.
What does your IF THIS, THEN THAT statement look like?

Find a way to enjoy it now.
The thing we enjoy doing is the thing that gets done repeatedly. Good habits are so hard to build because the benefit or the pleasure of the thing is delayed and the pain is immediate. We want to save for retirement, that means we can't spend the money on the new Nintendo Switch we want now. But the reward for saving, may be 30 years out. Getting that book written could be a year. While the hard act of writing is immediate. Bad habits on the other hand are the opposite. Doughnuts are delicious. So eating doughnuts brings us pleasure in the moment, but the effects on our health and well-being are delayed. Simply stated:

• Bad habits - immediate outcome is favorable, long-term outcome unfavorable.
• Good habits - immediate outcome unfavorable, long-term outcome is favorable

That's why bad habits are so easy to start and hard to break and good habits are hard to start and easy to break. So it is extremely important to find a way to bring a little reward for our good habits as close to the immediate as possible. Find a way to feel immediately successful even in a small way. Here is one thing that I have done. I have a few bottles of wine that I had been saving for special occasions. I also wanted to get my blog written consistently every week. So a coach friend of mine suggested I use a special bottle of wine to celebrate a successful month of writing. So now when I successfully complete one month's worth of writing I open a special bottle and share it with my family. I get to drink the wine and celebrate my success with my family. If you are curious, this month's bottle is a 2018 Austin Hope Cabernet Sauvignon. What I didn't count on is, now there is social pressure as well. If I miss a week, my wife will want to know why we are not drinking that bottle.
What some small reward could you have that supports your habits and gives you that boost to put in more reps?

Don’t break the chain
Get a calendar and put a giant red X on everyday you have put in the reps. We may have many starts and stops, but when we keep going we will start to see a chain of red X's on our calendar. At that point you want to keep the chain of red X's going on your calendar. This idea came from Jerry Seinfeld who used this technique to make sure that he wrote jokes everyday. He would have a calendar that was visible and would put a large red X on everyday where he wrote jokes. He didn't want to break the chain or the streak he had going. He never wanted there to be a day on the calendar without an X on it. It fueled him to continue to write. Try it. It could be that small reward you were needing.

Be systems oriented, not goal oriented
We have talked about putting in the reps. The reps are your system. If your goal is to be fluent in Italian, then your system is your daily practice. If your goal is to write a book, then your system is your daily writing schedule. Having a system and committing to it by showing up every day to accomplish the reps is what drives the results. Your goal is to lose 10 pounds, but your system is what you are doing to create that result. Be tied to the system or the reps. Having goals are good. Having clarity about what you want and where you are headed is awesome. However, once you know that it is having that system and committing to showing up every day is what drives the results.

Automaticity
We have a lot of data about how long it takes to build a habit. Of course, for years, we have all heard it takes 21 days to build a habit. The current research is saying it takes 66 days. But even within that study the number of days was in a wide range. Easy habits took much less and difficult habits took much longer. So we are all trying to get at this magical number of days it takes for us to develop automaticity, which when our habit takes over and we don't have to think about them anymore. I believe this is the wrong question. Inherent in that question is "When can we stop?" The answer is essentially we can never stop, because as soon as we stop doing the thing it is no longer a habit. The question we should be asking is how many reps we need to achieve the thing we want.

True change is identity change
True change is not behavior change. It is not process change. It is not results change. It is identity change. A change in the way we think about or see ourselves. There is a thought that in order to achieve something new that we have to abandon who we are and create immediate change. But the most lasting change happens step by step, brick by brick, habit by habit. Gradually you become someone new. With consistency and repetition you can change your results and also your identity. What we have to realize is that every action we take is a vote for the type of person we wish to become. The actions we take, the more votes or evidence we have for who we are or who we are becoming. The more evidence that we have for a belief, the more likely we are to believe it. The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner. The goal is not to write a book, the goal is to become a writer. How many reps before we change our identity to what we want. When we write everyday, how long will it take for us to identify ourselves as a writer. When we workout everyday, how long before we identify ourselves as someone who doesn't miss workouts.

Things we do once or twice fade away. Things that we do day after day, week after week, accumulate the bulk of the evidence of what we believe about ourselves. If we want to become someone new, take a new action, begin to accumulate the votes or the evidence for that identity, for that belief about ourselves. The more votes we cast, the more likely we are to win the election. We don’t have to be perfect all the time. We don't have the win all the votes, but when we have the majority of the votes in our favor,

WE WIN!!