Building Positive Habits

We are what we consistently 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 to ensure we wake up early, but often these habits are unconscious and take place without us even thinking about it. They occur due to convenience, favorable action, or the systems in place to create the desired behavior. Our habits influence everything we do, from how we get dressed—do you put your left or right sock on first? What do we do when we first wake up, hit snooze, and drift off back to sleep? Jump straight out of bed to attack the day? Or, unlock your phone to catch up on anything missed while you were sleeping. In order for us to build the habits that we want to perform the actions we desire, we must become more aware of what we currently do and the actions that enable or inhibit our desired behavior. The disconnect between the person we are and the person that we want to be can be found in the little daily habits; some may see them as insignificant. One example is hitting the snooze button; some would say it’s no big deal and does not have any consequence on the rest of your day; others would say that this simple behavior 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; 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. Once you realize this, the connections between habits and outcomes become more clear. The challenge is how to integrate them into our current schedules and routines to make them attainable, simple, and possible even when we lack motivation.

Decide Who You Want To Be 

First, you must take time to think about what is important to you and who you want to be. We cannot become great at everything; even if we are motivated to achieve, we have a finite amount of willpower, motivation, and time. While we may be able to grow our 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. Calculate what is achievable for you, and more importantly, what is valuable to you. Forcing ourselves to do something challenging will help you build up resistance to challenge and an ability to handle struggle but may take away from your efforts in another area of life, which is not going to benefit you and your unique desires. Select where you want to improve and prioritize that; once acclimatized, you can then build more powerful habits. The value of starting small with these habits and building them cannot be overstated; provide yourself with the opportunity to cement basic and minimally time-consuming habits with the goal of progression when set.

Create Enablers 

One way to support your overarching goals is by creating smaller habits and adjustments 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 and selecting your route the night before so that in the morning you can get straight after it. The habit enables you to run rather than be 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 the times 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 wanted to do it. 

Create Accountability Systems 

This may be a person, a contract, or a checklist. The key ingredient is that there is proof that you have or have not done the action and that 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 Instagram 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.

Install Reward Systems

Find ways to make your habit satisfying. Many of our desired habits create rewards in the long term; to make them consistent, make them rewarding. 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 when consistent over the long term. Create feedback loops that make you appreciate the effort you put in and encourage you to do them again. For example, you may give yourself an episode of your latest Netflix binge as a reward for every run complete. 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 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 habit is running, 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. 

Stack Positive Habits

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 fit best. 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 sleep, creating a successful nighttime routine that sets you up for a productive day. 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 and well recovered to stay 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. 

Finally, Enjoy The Process

Nobody is going to be perfect. No matter how well many of these systems are integrated, there will be days where you miss. The important thing is to not let this spiral. Just because one thing has gone wrong doesn’t mean that you should keep going beyond 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!

As James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, said best, “Missing once is an accident; missing twice is the start of a new habit.”