A way to make and sustain great habits.
I’m pretty much sure we’ve all heard the adage “practice makes perfect.” And then as adults we recognized that perfection is pretty much a BS target, destined to leave us feeling like we are coming up short. Who gets to perfection? Yeah, not me either. I’ve tried, and I don’t like aiming at futile outcomes –it’s a bit demoralizing.
So when I want to create a new habit to make my life better in some way, making a high commitment to a low standard1 is a great way to kick off a positive spiral. I didn’t make up this pithy phrasing, but I’ve certainly done this process several times in my life. And it works.
A Practice (noun): a habit with positive attributes
A practice could be defined as something you do regularly that brings benefit to self and others. Things like meditating every day, or working out, or calling your congressional representatives2, reading a book, and/or picking up litter could all be considered practices. There are many more.
Participating in any activity in a steady way can create positive outcomes, just like the practice of brushing one’s teeth creates a healthy mouth. But a practice’s true value is that it naturally carries us along in a mindset of ongoing achievement. Think of the once/week yoga class that becomes a lifestyle, or a daily journaling practice that becomes a book.
Practices that feel good get done often. And things that get done often, we tend to get good at. Things we get good at, we tend to get great at.
That is, once we get good at a certain level of practice, we tend to up-level without much extra effort.
The trick when initiating a new practice is to not set your standards too high. Instead shrink your daily attainment a super doable thing, so you can install a pattern of “I did it!” into your being over and over before you aim for the moon and stars.
Meditations on habit formation
Take for instance if you wanted to start a new practice to be meditating for an hour every day. How do you think you’ll feel if you miss the 5th day? Would you have the energy to jump in again on day 6? To recommit? New Year’s Resolutions tell the tale on this ‘high standard’ approach. They can get derailed by circumstance, and the commitment level AND time/effort level all need to be crazy waaayy high to get them rolling again.
But, if instead, a new meditator were to set a low standard to say, 3 mindful breaths each morning over coffee, then a pleasant habit could easily get established, and they could increase the amount of time later. They’d flourish in their meditation practice because it was designed it to be pleasant and sustainable.
‘High commitment’ means, you’ll do the thing daily, so it becomes as effortless as brushing your teeth. ‘Low standard’ means, the thing is totally do-able, even on a bad day.
Another example is picking up litter. One could commit to cleaning up a favorite open space every day for a year, but would that be sustainable? My guess is, there would be some days, it could be very difficult, or unappealing, or just bad weather, and one’s actions could falter. But if the goal were simpler, like picking up one piece of litter per day, perhaps one could carry on for years, doing much more when the spirit moves them and supporting others in doing the same too.3
Both the results and the process would be positive, which is a system for success; a happy habit, and a well-designed daily practice all rolled up into one.
I’m not sure how to wrap this up other than to ask you a few questions. You may take a moment to write them down if you’d like them to be more potent. I hope they are as helpful to you as they are to me.
- What is a practice/habit you feel would be good for you to start today?
- What about this is appealing to you?
- What is one way to make the practice easier than first stated?
- What’s a way to make practicing even easier to implement than that?
- Are you willing to experiment with beginning your new practice now?
FOOTNOTES
- I first heard this phrasing about success coming from “making a high commitment to a low standard” on the Greg McKeown Podcast when he interviewed guest Derek Sivers. McKeown is the author of books on Effortlessness and Essentialism. ↩︎
- Recommended App 5 Calls ↩︎
- Years ago, I found myself enjoying picking up litter, but also not desiring to put myself into a continual ‘falling short’ mindset by setting a crazy high goal or making some non-profit to run. So I set up LitterProject.com, a simple movement to encourage myself and others to pick up one piece of litter per day. The one piece aspect makes the practice sustainable. The website was in my wheelhouse, so also do-able. 24 years later and it’s still going strong. More at LitterProject.com ↩︎
