Mini Habits

The book Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results by Stephen Guise is based on the story of how the author discovered that mini habits work better than traditional big habits. For ten years the author tried many different personal development systems, to build significant daily habits that would help him achieve his fitness and writing goals, and had no success. One night in desperation he decided upon a mini habits - just one push-up a day. To his surprise this mini habit empowered him to do more and more push-ups and to ultimately develop fitness habits that helped him achieve his goals.

His surprising results with mini habits inspired him to research why they worked so well in achieving major results. The author’s personal experiences with a motivational approach to achievement was that to be motivated to work on a goal, it had to be big enough to be exciting, like running five miles a day or writing 2000 words a day.  The daily tasks required to achieve the goals took so much willpower to start that he never had the energy to get started, much less start a new habit.  Without “motivation” he could not get anything done.

Researchers have discovered that to be motivated to achieve a goal, which requires habit formation, the goal has to be big enough to get people excited. For many people just coming up with a big “exciting” goal was enough of an accomplishment. Having the goal was a reward enough and they no longer felt the need to actually accomplish it. Those who tried to accomplish a big goal which required developing new habits that took a lot of energy and willpower had a very negative experience and feeling of failure when the goal was not achieved.  The result was a huge resistance to developing new habits and a negative experience every time forming new habits was attempted yet not accomplished.

Establishing a mini-habit, on the other hand, does not require a lot willpower to start and since it is easy to do, it creates a regular positive experience by doing it each day. Even though the mini-habit is ridiculously small, it provides a positive sense of accomplishment and encouragement. It is important not to increase the mini-habit goal so that it remains easy to do. The mini-habit doesn’t require much energy to start so there is more energy to do the work.

The author suggests taking at least a month to see if mini-habits will work for you. I tried the mini-goal the author had, to write 50 words a day on a book I have been working for a year about what I have learned about cancer that I think everyone should know. The first few weeks the mini-goal seemed to help a little, but now that I have been doing it for 6 weeks it seems to be helping a lot. It not only helped with writing the book, but it contributed to me focusing the content and scope of the book. Instead of trying to explain the historical models of cancer and how recent discoveries are finding them to be wrong, I am focusing on the stunning new discoveries and the success of non-toxic cancer  treatments. Last week I wrote more in a day than I have since high school.

I feel using mini-goals is helping me achieve my goals. If you want to try a new way to accomplish things try out mini-goals. I highly recommend this book - Five Stars.