A Habit Hacking Experiment
I recently started reading “The Power of Habit.” I devoured half of it yesterday and can’t wait to finish the rest.
The book teaches you how habits form and describes ways to build new habits and replace old ones by reprogramming our habit loops. This sounds like a ton of fun to me. The first part of the process involves examining your current habits to look for cues and triggers that start a routine. The hack is to figure out what your keystone habits are and to modify their routines into those that help you win at life. Throughout life I’ve learned dozens of power habits without even realizing it. How much potential I can unleash with a deliberate and systematic approach?
The Challenge
To kick off 2015, I’m challenging myself to build up a new power habit – writing great material and sharing it with others regularly. To build the habit, it’s important to have a cue that triggers a routine, followed by a reward. Blogging seems to take a ton of willpower for me so I’m starting with baby steps. The small wins will build up into bigger ones.
Hacking a Habit Loop
After working a typical 9 to 5 job, I already daily built a habit of checking my email and rewarding myself with some leisure reading or web surfing. Most days, checking email leads to writing something, so I’ll replace the email check with a trip to my blog. And then I’ll write at least 250 words and push the publish button (the hardest part for me) before I indulge my knowledge sponge with the latest headlines on Hacker News.
So, what habits would you like to develop in 2015? I read every reply.
Update:
Get out of a slump by building a keystone habit.
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