I recently reviewed a great little book that I read a few years ago entitled Mini Habits by Stephen Guise. He argues that good habits are hard to form (true!) and, therefore, most of us never establish them. A way to overcome this is to begin a “mini habit” which Guise calls “stupidly small.” They are so small that you don’t need either willpower or motivation to do them.
For example, one mini habit he cites is to do one pushup a day. How much effort does that take? Not much. If you are in bed at night and remember it, all you have to do is hop out of bed and do one. Easy! The rule is that you must do one but don’t have to stop there. And, while you’re doing one, how easy it is to do two or three…or 10? But, you can never raise the target above one! I began this mini habit in June 2015 and, guess what? I haven’t missed a day yet! Guess what else? I now usually do 30-50 a day (but all I have to do is one!). No pressure. So, in the last seven years, I’ve done more than 65,000 pushups! Am I healthier for it? You bet!