Habit formation is not an easy feat. An internet search for a winning formula leads to words like consistency, regularity, steadiness, discipline and continuity. If you are gifted with these qualities, you are blessed!
If you tend to feel bored and skip a day or two on your well laid out plan purely because you find it hard staying motivated in the face of monotony, you are not alone.
I call this feeling the Single Option Aversion — a term more prevalently used in consumer research.
I personally like to have variety.
So in overcoming my biggest hurdle to habit formation, 2 tactics helped me.
1. Getting over the Single Option Aversion
2. Putting Zeigarnik Effect to work
First was by getting over the Single Option Aversion by giving myself the freedom to choose from a limited variety of options for a specific goal.
Which looked like having the option to:
Choose between the activities I enjoyed doing for my weekly workout target
Choose between from a set number of books to cover my weekly pages target
Choose between a set number of courses to study for my monthly study target
Choose between topics to write about for my monthly blogging target
Second was putting something called the Zeigarnik Effect to work to overcome monotony [as explored in Mel Robbins's book The High 5 Habit]
It is the best technique I have encountered to smooth out the resistance felt in doing the things that need to be done in reaching the end goal. The technique involves not just visualising the end goal, but visualising incorporating the micro actions that need to be repeated in the process. The process and the actions towards the end goal becomes the undone in our brain activating the Zeigarnik effect.
In practice, this looked like the following for me:
I visualised feeling bored in doing the same exercise routine yet again but doing it anyway
I visualised feeling exhausted at the end of a working day but finishing the day target for that online course anyway
I visualised feeling nervous before publishing my post but publishing it anyway
I visualised reminding myself it will be the 3rd day in a row that I overcame the temptation to skip reading
Applying these I could stay more consistent and kick off monotony out of achieving my goals since the most difficult path towards achieving a goal, for me personally was in staying the course.
I realised that being consistent with the habit in a way aligned with my personality worked better for me than beating myself up for not being consistent in the traditional sense of it. I chose discipline even if in my own complicated way. One size doesn’t fit all.
Which one do you choose — the pain of discipline or the pain of regret?
