Micro habits: better than willpower

Micro Habits

Focus your efforts more on micro habits instead of macro habits if you want to achieve success. A micro habit is one of the several steps that are involved in the macro habit, which is the main goal that you want to achieve. 

For example, if you want to set a habit of being more productive and working earlier, then you would establish the micro habits that support your ability to achieve that goal, such as eating earlier, going to bed earlier, exercising, putting social media away before bed, etc. 

• Micro habits help with visualization

I talked about visualization in Habit Hack # 3.

Visualization is when you visualize the exact goal that you want along with every step for how to get there. Once you do this, your subconscious will know the route for how to achieve success.

Micro habits are a way to jump start and help your subconscious ability to achieve goals. The subconscious can be mystifying, but it shouldn’t be. The subconscious is just your brain using information from your body to connect the dots that keep you alive and keep you happy. When you’re doing things, even small, seemingly insignificant things, then your brain is able to connect the dots more easily and achieve success.

• Micro habits help you audit your visualization

When you actively create micro habits, you have a better understanding of the steps you need to take in order to achieve your macro goal. This helps you refine your process of visualization. 

When you decide to wake up early to go to the gym, you may not have realized that the traffic at a different hour lets you take a different, faster route. Who knows what the difference will be, but the point is there are always unforeseen aspects of any change. When we have to deal with these things, we have to think about them, however small.

Visualization is the way to unleash your subconscious ability to achieve goals, but you have to use your conscious, analytical brain to visualize. The more you actively engage in the micro habits that lead to your goal, the more clearly you’ll be able to visualize them and communicate to your subconscious.

• Micro habits free up your brainpower 

Change is hard. Big change is harder. Macro habits are harder to accomplish when you try to achieve them through sheer willpower. Our brains put up resistance whenever we try to establish a new pattern or behavior. But when you focus on creating the micro habits that support the end goal, you take away that resistance. Not only are you producing patterns of behavior that are working towards your main goal, but you’re also freeing up brainpower that your subconscious can use to create opportunities for success. 

Don’t waste brainpower trying to “motivate” yourself. That works fine in the beginning but never lasts. Focus on overcoming all the small obstacles first. 

• Micro habits create success - success solidifies identity

Micro habits are easier to achieve, and that’s okay to admit. Therefore micro habits give you a feeling of success. Success is good, because it increases your feeling of identity associated with that goal. In the end a change of identity is the only thing that will lead to lasting change and successful micro habits help to accomplish that. 

For example, maybe you’re trying to be more productive at work. You notice that you’re working too late, because you’re often checking your phone and wasting time throughout the day. You create a micro habit of putting your phone away during certain times and are able to do this simple step successfully. Even if this doesn’t lead to an immediate increase in productivity (which it probably would) the feeling of self-control gives you a sense of success. 

Micro habits help create the identity that leads to success. I firmly believe that there is happiness on the road from A to B, and this is one of the ways to find it.

• Micro habits use the power of routine to your advantage

Have you ever noticed that a change in routine or a long trip can cause a change of perspective? We’re creatures of routine, and we can become slaves to routine and the same patterns of thinking if we don’t ever try anything new. 

In a way, we think of routine as something negative. But you can turn the power of routine to your advantage. Intentionally create a positive routine that makes you get “stuck” in a positive pattern of thinking...without even “thinking” about it. It sounds corny, but why not use the way the brain works to help yourself? 

That’s what’s so brilliant about focusing on all the little micro habits that support a larger, more difficult macro habit that you want to adopt. By adopting a lot of other, smaller habits that require objectively less effort, you can convince your subconscious that the macro habit is actually a part of your identity. 

And in the end...you will be. If you’re consistent and focus on making the change at the level of your identity.

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