On consistency
I find myself yet again in the constant struggle of staying consistent. People often talk about trying a habit for 30 days and expecting it to stick from there. For me it seems to be about my breaking point. It’s really quite easy to stick to a habit for 30 days. The issue is taking it further - 3 months, a year. Part of the issue may be psychological, in that I’ve achieved my milestone of reaching 30 days and can now relax, or part may be that my routine is too strict, so that I experience the same blow-back you do when you try an extreme diet and end up binge-eating junk food. Whatever the case, consistency is the struggle.
And I’m not the only one. There are innumerable articles, videos and blog posts on how to stay consistent. Often it’s not for lack of determination either. Or lack of a firm goal. While sticking to daily routines over lofty goals is generally recommended for building good habits, it’s also often touted that you should “remember your why”. When you struggle and feel like you might be lacking in the motivation needed to stick with your goals, you can look back at all the reasons why it’s so important to you.
For me, I don’t find myself missing these things. I know my “why”. I remind myself of it. I don’t think I’m missing determination in general, though it obviously wavers when my habits slack. And I do other things to keep me on track like visualising success, scheduling habits or stacking them, reducing the barrier to them, upping the barrier to bad habits etc. I’ve gone full James Clear on my habits.
Instead, I think the most crucial issue for me is environment. I’m just not surrounded by others that are also trying their best to stay consistent and push long-term goals. And that’s not a bad thing - they don’t need to. They’re happy as they are and that’s a good thing for them. I wouldn’t want everyone around me to be the same or have the same views or goals. But environment and who you’re around influences your thinking about habits a lot, so in order to better stick to habits and consistency, I need constant input from elsewhere that motivates me and brings me up, helps me push forward and reminds me that others too are working to be consistent and stay motivated. This essentially means listening to podcasts, watching youtube videos or reading books on self-improvement on a daily basis.
I had initially been doing this in the morning, by building a habit of reading at least 2 pages (low barrier to entry) of a self-improvement book each morning (scheduled) while I drink my morning coffee (habit stacking). I put my morning supplies together to trigger the thoughts and give easy access (I don’t spend the morning searching for my book). I write down my morning routine plans the night before so I’ve set an intention to do the habit the next day. I even try to log them in the evening so I can see my progress. But it turns out that isn’t enough. The rest of my environment is so all-encompassing (especially with kids, who demand your full attention and couldn’t care less about your 5-year Mandarin fluency plan, nor should they), that I need small consistent input from this broader field of consistency throughout the day. And no just on consistency and self-improvement in general. It also helps to have specific input on the same goals, like listening to a podcast someone learning the same language as you, or watching videos on personal finance when you want to keep up your financial independence plan.
Overall, I need more in my environment which is feeding back to me who I am or who I want to become. This all kind of reminds of when I first started learning Japanese as a teenager. I had a strong belief, and still do, that you had to set your environment to be in the target language, called immersion. But while we talk about immersion a lot in language learning, it doesn’t get enough time elsewhere. If you’re struggling with habits, and you’ve tried other tactics, then converting your environment to reflect back who you want to be and completely immerse yourself with input which aligns with your goals and intended habits may help keep you going.
This has been more of a rambling post than I’d planned, but the point here is that environment (in terms of both people and your physical environment) plays a much bigger role in building habits than we generally talk about. And if you’re struggling too, maybe more consistent exposure to the kind of people that are working towards similar goals would work for you too.