Building Habits For Our Dreams
My dad always says, "You can do anything for 90 days; you can even stand on your head for that long." I proved that I could do anything for 75 days; if the challenge had been longer, I would have done it for longer. As military spouses, we prove that we can do anything for 90, 180, 365, or however many days a deployment lasts. The problem, at least for me, is maintaining that level of activity and accountability when the challenge is over. The problem is transitioning from activity to habit.
Building a habit is a different set of skills than completing a challenge. We can get through the race using sheer willpower. We can push ourselves to other levels and force endurance because we know it is temporary. That motivation goes away when we build a habit, mainly because most of us hope to make our positive habits permanent.
According to a study from the British Journal of General Practice, building a habit takes five steps (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505409/#:~:text=Choose%20a%20simple%20action%20that,and%20place%2C%20do%20the%20action )
1. Decide what goal we would like to achieve
2. Pick a simple action that gets us to the goal and can be completed on a daily basis
3. Plan when and where this action will be completed, ensuring that it is something we
naturally encounter
4. Do the action every time we meet the time and place criteria
5. We should find that the activity is automatic every time we enter that setting within ten
weeks.
The goal we choose here will likely be slightly different from our dreams. We are talking about these habits that will extend beyond chasing this dream and aren't easy to change once they are in place. We need good habits to achieve our dreams, but living a healthy life transcends the chase of any one dream.
Let's say that the dream is to run a marathon. My husband just signed up for an ultra marathon Spartan Race for the end of the year. That is a big undertaking, especially given the fact that he's never run a marathon before. There are certainly running plans out there that would take him through training prep. Things like couch to 5k (I'm sure there is a couch to marathon version) are designed to give people a plan to follow. But again, that makes it very easy to fall into the challenge mindset of completing the task before us and then falling off the wagon completely when the goal is achieved.
For some things, that is totally fine. If our goal is to run a marathon and check that box, then it would be good for us to do that. I think many people, though, want to be healthier overall, and we hope that chasing the dream of a marathon will ignite passion for an activity that keeps us healthy.
Instead, we should follow the metric set out above. We need to establish the habit of working out for X amount of time every day. Then, we need to establish the cue, such as when the alarm goes off at 6:30, as soon as we get off work, or right after the kids go down for their naps. It doesn't matter what the cue is as long as it is something that happens relatively consistently in our lives. Then, eventually, we hit a point where we will always work out when the alarm goes off regardless of what we are training for. This allows us to go from running a marathon to preparing for a triathlon to just staying in good enough shape to keep up with toddlers.
Our dreams usually require us to become better versions of ourselves. If we were already top dogs, it wouldn't take all that much to achieve our dreams. Instead, we must grow to a new level in our development as individuals. So, it makes sense that we should try to maintain the activity beyond achieving our dreams.
It's easy to see the value of creating habits for a fitness dream, but the same applies to our other ones. My writing dreams mean that I need to be writing daily. That skill won't lose importance, though, once I achieve the dream of publishing a book because having this outlet for my thoughts will always put me in a better position, even if the words never see the light of day. If the dream is to vacation in Italy, then the skill set of saving money, planning, prioritizing, and acting on something will aid us far beyond our 10-day trip.
We achieve our dreams inch by inch. It comes down to the minutes we spend doing what we need to be doing and the process of creating good habits within that only helps us reach our dream faster. Getting into the habit of cooking at home means saving money on eating out, which means more money for vacation funds. Getting into the habit of writing every day means more work for me to utilize and more practice at my craft. Inch by inch means start small, though. We need new habits to be as easy as possible in the beginning, which means starting with writing something, anything every day and then working our way up to a page a day or whatever the goal is.
Moving forward one inch at a time can be a frustrating pace, so we probably need more than the cue of getting off work to keep us on the path. If there is a way to make it fun, then by all means, go that route. Running on a treadmill can get boring quickly, but nothing says we can't binge our favorite show while training for a race. Sitting down to write can be challenging, especially if writer's block is hitting hard, but it always helps me to make a fun coffee drink before I start. I highly recommend the cold foam cream that you can spray to add more fun to drinks. Whatever it takes to help us stay on track is the right thing for us to do (and there usually exists a solution that doesn't cost $7 a day).
And if we can find social support for these things, we will have way more consistency when it comes to doing what we need to do. It's very easy to talk ourselves out of a workout, but we aren't going to flake on our friend that we planned to meet at the gym. Writing groups exist for a reason. Whatever your goal, I'm sure there is a group or partner out there that can help increase your accountability towards your goals.
Finally, when establishing a new habit, we must set up our go/no-go ground rules ahead of time. When we were doing 75 Hard, there were a few days when we were walking in below-freezing temperatures, going at a snail speed because the ground was so slick. And while we were fortunate not to have any sick days, we could have easily come down with the flu or something that would have made completing the challenge a bad idea. That doesn't mean we wouldn't have done it, though, because starting over probably would have been worse than drinking a gallon of water with a sore throat. But those also would not have been good choices to make. Slipping on ice or pushing our body through a fever could have easily set us back in another aspect of life.
If left to our devices, we can talk ourselves out of anything. However, there will be days when other things need to be prioritized. We just need to decide in advance what the rules are for taking a day off rather than figuring it out on the fly. The dream of running a marathon might mean taking days off if we're sick (and define whether sick means bedridden, just feeling a little crummy, or something else in between), tied up with work meetings quite literally all day, or if it is lightning outside and we don't have access to a treadmill. Try to think of every obstacle upfront and decide ahead of time what the reasonable deal breakers should be.
Unfortunately, creating a habit means showing up for something every day until we no longer have to force ourselves to do it. And after that point, we still have to show up every day; it just isn't as hard to do. There's no shortcut to building habits. It is weeks and weeks of consistent activity. A challenge may certainly suit the needs of whatever dream we are chasing, but maintaining our dreams and the progression of our dreams often means maintaining our skill set and activity, so when we start chasing, why not do it the right way by building the habits we need to succeed upfront?