So last week I read Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results, by Stephen Guise. This was, again, one of my Kindle Unlimited options. I waited to post about it because it’s definitely a Monday sort of book. On Mondays, I always get the urge to be a more worthwhile human. As evidence that I am not a worthwhile human, I submit that I thought it posted on Monday but it didn’t actually go through.
The premise of Guise’s system is that you can create all (actually 1-4 at a time) of the good habits you want in life by starting extremely small–his example is committing to doing one push-up every day, your mini habit, in order to ultimately create a full exercise habit. This is perfect for me, because my go-to system is to get super excited about my good habit, do the bare minimum, and then abandon it forever.
His argument, however, is that you won’t abandon your mini habit because it’s so painless. Further, he posits that you will expand on the habit a lot of the time because you don’t have to. For example, a lot of the dread associated with going to the gym is because your mind builds up the horror of 45 minutes on the treadmill. However, if your mini habit is just to drive to the gym, once you’re there you might think, “well, I can at least go inside,” then, “I might as well walk on the treadmill for a few minutes,” then, “I could probably run for thirty seconds,” and so on.
One of the aspects I had the most difficulty with was the balance between not just doing the bare minimum every day (though you are still supposed to consider that a success) and not building a secret, larger, “shadow” habit in your mind. For example, I might say my goal is to read two pages of a book per day, but after reading 15 pages every day for a month, I feel obligated not to break that streak. I think this is the weakest part of his book, because he’s basically like “the book will be wasted if you do this, but my advice is just to not let yourself forget that two pages is a success.”
On the other hand, this has totally worked for him (he published a book as a result, for example), so I can’t exactly knock it. I also know how annoyingly persistent habits can be: as a child I started reading books while I ate (we were a non-traditional family…). Today, I struggle to eat alone without having something to read. I have been known to resort to the back of cereal boxes.
I’ve struggled to come up with good habits, primarily because, as this blog shows, I want to be good at everything immediately. Also, because I’m morbid, I had to abandon some of my ideas, like texting my mother every day (what if she’s in a coma?!). To be fair though, it is sort of daunting to think of something you want your brain to urge you to do every day for the rest of your life.
Your mini habits are supposed to take you a maximum of 10 minutes to complete, and you’re supposed to limit yourself to four habits at a time. I settled on these things:
Drawing: I’m trying to get better at drawing. Because I love to read, I always thought of myself more as a writer, if the universe was handing out creative hobbies to amateurs. However, drawing is relaxing in a way that writing is not. With writing, I feel this enormous pressure to be good, and to apply everything I’ve learned from all the reading I’ve done. With drawing, I can accept my dismal contributions. I do want to improve, so my first habit is to draw for five minutes per day.
Exercise: Exercise is more difficult, because there are a lot of exercise things that you can’t do every day. Also, it’s hard to reduce running to a small enough habit that it doesn’t have a lot of associated resistance. Even getting all of my running stuff together is a pain–changing clothes, finding heart rate monitor, suffering through putting heart rate monitor on even though it’s freezing and has to go directly on your skin, etc. Guise talks about starting your habits as small as is necessary and then building on those habits. I’m really tempted to make my habit “pack a gym bag every day,” but then what if I just leave the same gym bag packed? I’m going to try put on workout clothes once per day OR do 1 push-up (there’s more on this in the book, but gym habits often have to be “hybrid habits,” because it’s not really beneficial to do a full work out every day). In a month, I’ll see how many days ended up being workout days and how many were push-up days, to see if I need to change this habit.
Health: I am forever trying to eat healthier and failing, because I only have two settings: on and off. Either I’m eating nothing and walking for hours every day, or I’m eating all the things and lounging. Either I’m micromanaging my food intake, measuring lettuce and garlic cloves, or I’m getting takeout for lunch and dinner. However, part of my problem is that I find healthy food boring and often bitter (am I a supertaster??). In hopes of branching out into better and more exciting health food, my mini habit is to eat one serving of fresh vegetables per day. I see a lot of mini carrots in my future.
Knowledge: As I said above, I have a thing about reading while eating that borders on compulsive (because I have many other less than ideal actual compulsive tendencies, I feel okay about making this comparison. Feel free to be offended though). However, I basically only read fiction and as a result am only educated about 19th century England, as described in various romance novels. So, my last mini habit is to read two pages of a non-fiction book (NOT an article) per day.
BONUS: Cleaning: I really tried to stick to 4 habits, but I just couldn’t. There are so many things I want to do, and not enough time! Also, because 2 of my previous 4 are totally painless (the drawing and the reading), I feel okay about adding one more, particularly because it will feel like a big accomplishment if I can pull it off. I am constantly bothered by how messy and cluttered my apartment feels. So, my last habit is to clean for one minute per day OR get rid of a possession.
As for Mini Habits itself, 8 out of 10, at least.
Renaissance Girl 