Two Keys to Creating Habits that Last

My mother used to make sure that her sink was clean every night before bed. As a child, I never really got the importance of that, nor did I understand her frustration when she would awaken to dirty dishes/glasses in the sink that she had cleaned so well the night before.

I was in my 40s before I got it. Even then, I didn’t make a long-lasting habit of cleaning my sink every night without fail until very recently. Recently – as in last month.

I didn’t set any goals at the end of last year, because I usually fail gloriously to achieve any of them.

What I did was something very different – I determined that I would add one new habit a month. A couple of years ago, I tried adding one new thing a week. It was too much, and none of them stuck.

I did something else that was different: the moment I had the idea, I implemented it. It wasn’t the first of the year or the first of the month, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to wait until the “perfect” time, because for me, there is never a perfect time to start anything (can anyone relate?)

Back in the fall, I found a really cool book called Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life… and Maybe the World. It's available on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2F67drM (and yes, that is an affiliate link, but feel free to just search Amazon or any other bookstore for the book).

So a few days before January 1, 2018, after reading the book in fits and spurts, I decided to start making my bed every morning. I’ve done this in the past, but it had been decades since I had done it consistently every day for a long period of time. I decided this would be the first habit that I would tackle. It was visual and small, and I could do it first thing in the morning before I did anything else and forgot.

At first it was interesting – I made it “just so” and was proud every morning. It gave me something to mentally check off, which helped me get other things done. After the first month, it was pretty much ingrained in me (they say it takes 21 days to create a new habit), and I wasn’t thinking about making it perfectly. I just wanted to make it because the bed didn’t look right being unmade. THAT was when I realized that it had worked.

So far I’ve maintained the bed-making, even if something happens and I don’t get to it immediately after I wake up. One day I made it, even though I wasn’t feeling well, and knew I would likely end right back in it. I just didn’t want to break the streak. Another day, I made it just hours before bedtime; I can’t remember what happened that day, but seeing it unmade just bothered me. It didn’t matter that in just a few hours we would be crawling into it.

Even when I didn’t sleep in the bed (a couple nights my daughters were sick, so I stayed on the couch so I could hear them if they needed me), I still made it. These were times when only my husband’s side of the bed was unmade, and the first time I saw that he hadn’t made it, I wasn’t happy. I reminded myself that this was something I had committed to do (and truthfully, he always made his bed before we got together).

My February habit was cleaning my sink and stove every night. No dishes, glasses or utensils were left in there. There were a few nights when I wasn’t feeling well that my husband did not clear the sink, and I will admit that I had an attitude about that, but again, this was MY commitment. So I put my big girl underwear on and took care of it. I kept myself accountable by sharing a few pics with my sisters at random times. Their encouragement made me feel good, and seeing a clean sink made me feel good, too. It also helps that when my husband sees a clean sink, he will almost always make sure he leaves it the same way. He is the neatnik in the family, lol.

Now that I’ve kept up this habit for a month, and the bed-making habit for two months, it is time to choose a new habit for March. I'm coming up kind of blank, though.

So the title of this post promised two keys to creating habits that last.

If you haven’t guessed them already, here they are:

1. Make the habit you are working on VISIBLE.
   This is important because if it is something that you can see (as in my habits of making the bed and cleaning the stove and sink), then you will be reminded of it daily. When you’ve accomplished that act for the day, you will see it, and if you haven’t done it, you will see that also. So make sure it’s something visible.

2. Make it small enough to do every day, but big enough that you will notice.
   If you commit to something that isn’t possible to do daily, or that is too hard for you, then all you're doing is setting yourself up for failure. And once you have that awful feeling of failure, it tends to get a little harder to do what you said you would. Why? Because that voice inside your head – that critic that loves to mess with you and tell you you’re not good enough – starts telling you it’s no use, that you shouldn’t even bother, because you’ll just fail again. Or maybe that’s just me?

Anyway, the point is that making your task small enough that you can handle gives you confidence to attempt bigger things each time you decide to develop a new habit. It works because when you see that you are succeeding, you build more confidence. This leads to your inner cheerleader becoming louder: “I KNEW you could do this!” and your inner critic getting quieter and quieter.

It is often said that life begins outside your comfort zone; in this case, I don't necessarily agree. I think with this, you need to make it small enough so that is it just plain DOABLE.

So there you have it – two ways to make ensure that the new wonderful habits you’re creating actually STICK.

Now go decide on something you want to do, make it small and visible, and GO DO IT!!!