Self improvement habits are (almost always) impossible.
The reason why people buy habit book after habit book after habit book...
👋 Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only post 🔒 of my newsletter. I talk about the science behind habit formation, personal development, and behavior change.
Around 2015, I had an epiphany.
I was sitting in my San Francisco apartment, doing my daily writing exercises, when I realized that it would never get easier.
I had challenged myself to write a daily article on either technology or behavioral science, and was a few weeks into the process. As someone who was steeped in habit formation research, I was just putting in the hours—working towards a glorious moment at some point in the future when the process would become nearly effortless.
It would take months, but at some point I was quite certain that my mind would be transformed into something approaching a writing machine. It would, like a well trained show dog, snap to attention each morning, ready to execute its well rehearsed routine. After spending an hour in something resembling a flow state, I’d come to my senses and see a fully formed article sitting there in front of me.
How wonderful.
The problem was that my actual experience was quite different. In fact, it was the opposite.
I found that, instead of getting easier, writing was getting harder each day.
The first week was easy. I wrote about my favorite, most familiar topics.
The second week I was still humming along.
By the third week, I was getting into some of my less rehearsed content. I had to think a lot more.
My writing was getting *less* automatic, not more. I would often stare at the ceiling for 10 or 15 minutes, thinking things through. It was a fully conscious, effortful process.
And it was during this journey that I started to realize the deep problems with habits—especially as a tool for self improvement.
What are habits?
Habits are routine behaviors that are performed automatically, requiring little or no conscious effort. They help us solve recurring problems, conserve energy, and manage routine tasks efficiently, freeing up mental resources for more demanding activities.
Examples Of Habits
Drinking a glass of water
Snacking on chips
Making coffee first thing in the morning
Going to sleep at 10PM each night
Brushing your teeth each evening
Watching TV after work
Notice what’s not on this list?
Things like reading, learning a new skill, and exercising.
Anything that requires a moderate amount of thinking and willpower cannot, technically, be a habit.
You are never going to automatically go on a grueling run, do a hard workout, or learn a new cognitively demanding skill
It’s just not possible. That’s not how our minds work.
The problem is that these are the things that people who are interested in new habits want to do. For example, if you look at lists of peoples’ desired habits and New Years Resolutions, they’re things like:
Exercise more
Start going to the gym
Read more
Lose weight (start eating healthier)
Meditate daily
Learn to program
Learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu
None of these things are easy. None of these things can be done without a great deal of concentration and willpower.
In other words: none of these things can be habits.
Yet each year, millions of people purchase the newest book on habit formation hoping to use the tips and tricks provided to get better at these things.
Unfortunately, they’re using the wrong tools for the job.
You wouldn’t use a set of surgical tools to fix a car. You shouldn’t use the science of habit formation to get yourself to create a new Transformative Practice.
Transformative Practices
We need a new term for the hard, yet rewarding, things people want to do to better their lives.
I call them Transformative Practices.
Transformative Practices are deliberate, effortful activities that involve focus, thought, and willpower. They challenge us to grow, learn, and improve by engaging our conscious minds. These practices often lead to personal growth, learning, or significant life change, but they require more energy and focus than habits.
Examples Of Transformative Practices
Running each day
Working out at the gym 4x a week
Reading a new book each week
Starting a newsletter
Learning a new language
Starting Crossfit
Dieting
Creating Transformative Practices is different than creating habits
Transformative Practices never become automatic.
Transformative Practices never can be done without deliberate, conscious thought.
Transformative Practices never get that much easier.
Because of this, things like “doing the behavior at the same time each day” and “making the behavior as easy as possible” become almost irrelevant when creating Transformative Practices.
Instead, the most important things become:
Getting clear on your goals and the transformation you desire
Picking the right activity (or activities)
That’s it.
Adding reminders/triggers/cues, adding rewards, creating commitment contracts… these sorts of cute tactics become irrelevant.
Why?
Because you’re going to do something challenging to get something you actually care about. The thing you do should be something that fits you and your unique skills, personality, and life situation.
It should be something that you find:
Enjoyable
Exciting (Or, at the very least, compelling)
In-line with your skills, strengths, and life situation
As long as you choose the right goal and right activity/behavior, nothing else matters.
Choosing the right goal takes a lot of work
Most people aren’t good at choosing goals.
They pick things that they think they *should* do instead of things they actually want.
Learning how to choose things you actually care about is a matter of self knowledge. If you are in touch with your thoughts and feelings, you’ll have a much easier time.
Gaining self knowledge is a large topic we’ll cover in future posts.
Choosing the right behavior takes a lot of work
New Years Resolutions are infamous for not sticking.
There’s a reason that people buy habit book after habit book, and a new much hyped habit formation book is released each year.
The reason?
People are bad at picking the right behaviors for their goals.
If people chose the right activities, the right behaviors, none of these books would be needed.
Choosing the right behavior is a matter of self awareness. Fortunately, this can be taught.
If you’re aware of your strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes, you’ll be able to choose the right behaviors for your goals.
You’ll choose things that aren’t too difficult. You’ll choose things that actually fit with your tastes and preferences. You’ll pick things that just fit—things that you want to do.
In future posts, we’ll talk a lot about how you should approach picking the right behavior/activity for each of your goals.
Looking beyond habits to Transformative Practices
The important thing to remember is that most of things you’ve been struggling to turn into habits can’t become habits.
Accepting this and realizing that you should not be looking for things that will, magically, become easy and automatic is the first step to making real progress.
Until next time.
Strong agree.
Most literature, implicitly or otherwise, conflates "easy" acts that are easily adapted into habits like teeth brushing with transformative practices that are of a different kind of complexity.
It's entirely possible that these transformative practices themselves are made up of many smaller easy acts which themselves can be habits.
E.g.
learning Brazilian Ju-Jitsu (a transformative practice) consists of many smaller easy acts like showing up for class weekly, practicing, etc. but planning for these smaller easy acts to link up in a way that leads to transformative results (go from BJJ newbie to experienced BJJ practitioner) requires deliberate efforts.
And most literature plays these down.