Building Positive Habits
We are what we do.
What we do most consistently are our habits; these are the foundations for the majority of the actions we take. Sometimes these are conscious habits, such as setting an alarm so that we can wake up early, but often these habits are unconscious and take place without us even thinking about it. This can be seen in how we get dressed—do you put your left or right sock on first, or what do we do when we first wake up? In order for us to build the habits that we want to develop, we must become more aware of what we currently do that enables or inhibits them. The disconnect between the person that we are and the person that we want to be can be found in our little daily habits; some may see them as insignificant. One example is hitting the snooze button; some would say it’s no big deal, others would say it sets your day up to be an unmotivated mess. As college students, many of us don’t realize the impact of the little things and the impact they have on our bodies, attitudes, and mindsets. In order to become the person we want to be, we must do the things that person would do. Often, it is not hard to connect the dots. Do you want to be the best athlete? Dedicate more time to training, recovery, and film study. Want to become a better student? Put more time into your studies, pay attention in class, and go beyond expectations when it comes to reading and understanding. These seem obvious, but we create ideas that keep us feeling safe and comfortable. When you decide it is something you really want to do, you can dedicate yourself to those goals and ignore the easier options.
Reflect on who you want to be
Take time to think about what is important to you. We cannot become great at everything; even if we are motivated to achieve, we have a finite amount of willpower and motivation. While we may be able to grow that capacity, there will always be a limit to what we can force ourselves to do in a day. To spend time and energy building a habit, it must be something that feeds into the person we want to be. If we don’t want to be more resilient or aren’t interested in the recovery benefits, an ice bath simply isn’t worth it. Forcing ourselves to do something challenging will help you build up resistance to challenge and an ability to handle struggle, but it may take away from your efforts in another area of life, which is not going to benefit you individually. Select where you want to improve and prioritize that; once acclimatized to this behavior, you can then build more powerful habits.
Create enablers
One way to support your overarching goals is by creating smaller habits that feed into the outcomes we desire. If you want to go on morning runs, then build a habit of laying your running clothes and shoes out the night before so that in the morning you can get straight after it. The habit enables you to run rather than being the habit itself; the habit makes it easier to do the action of running. One way of making sure that your habits are achievable is to support them at times when you feel motivated to do them. Most people will go to bed saying, "I’ll go on a run tomorrow," but by the time you wake up, that priority has changed, and you’ll revert back to comfort. Create enablers—things that will help you overcome that apprehension or resistance. You’ve made it difficult to say no when everything is already in place to show you can do it and you want to do it.
Create an accountability system
This may be a person, a contract, or a checklist. The key ingredient is that there is proof that you have or have not taken action, and there is a consequence for not doing what you say you’re going to do. If you fail to run that morning, then give your roommate five dollars or lock yourself out of Netflix for the day. Create consequences for inaction that generate a slight fear or discomfort if you don’t follow through on something that could and should have been done.
Create reward systems
On the other hand, you can find ways to make your habit satisfying beyond the long-term reward to make you want to continue to do it. For example, running a mile once has little to no reward. You may feel like you have accomplished something, but that internal feedback is short-lived. The results of multiple runs will show in your health, performance, and physique. Create additional feedback loops that make you appreciate the effort you put in. For example, you may give yourself an episode of your latest Netflix binge as a reward for every mile run. The reward is individual, but create something that makes you appreciate the effort you put in. This is why the Pomodoro study technique is effective: for every 25 minutes of hard work, you are rewarded with 5 minutes of whatever you want. This creates the feedback that I will concentrate for this amount of time and get this in return. Find and match appropriate rewards. If your goal is to lose weight and your goal is to run more, don’t reward yourself with a cookie. It sounds obvious, but sometimes we get so lost in the habit that we forget about the overarching goal.
Let one positive habit feed into the next positive habit
If you can find ways to link positive behaviors, then you will begin to create a day dedicated to progression. You will build a foundation for consistent behavior and learn to add behaviors where they seem fit. Going back to laying out clothes the night before your run can be an opportunity to clean your room, place your clothes ready for the morning, and then make some nighttime tea to help you sleep. The combination of habits can flow from one to the next, which encourages more positive behavior with minimal effort. To be a better student athlete, you have to be well organized, well recovered, and fit. In this scenario, you are building three separate easy-to-do habits that enable you to get more work done, train harder, and recover better. Create a network of positive habits.
Finally, try to enjoy the process
This is perhaps the hardest one; with the desire to become the best version of ourselves, undoubtedly we are to experience some impatience as we wish to be that person tomorrow. To become who we want to be takes more time than we wish to admit; it doesn't happen overnight, no matter how much willpower we have or how many systems we put in place. Nobody is going to be perfect. There will be days where we make mistakes, but the important thing is to not fall into a spiral of missed opportunities. Just because one thing has gone wrong doesn’t mean that you should keep going beyond the point of return. Do not create a habit of not doing your habit. If you fall down once, make the effort to get up the next day. Never miss twice! The key to successful habit-building is the acknowledgement of reason and the consistent reflection of why. The grim reality is that as soon as one habit becomes comfortable, we desire for the next one, no longer appreciating how difficult the first one was to routinize. By the time we have achieved this "ideal version" of us, our ideas of what is desirable have moved on, whether that is one step on from where we are or something completely different. We will want to move onto the next progression. Enjoy the journey of self-improvement, one habit at a time.
