The year 2022 is already 2 months past, I would like to ask the readers, have you set and started your plans for this year? Has anyone made an exercise plan, bought good exercise equipment but eventually gave up, has anyone made a weight loss or slimming plan but stopped halfway, has anyone planned for how many books to read in a year but only lasted 3 days?
If your answer is yes, and therefore complained about your lack of action and willpower. Please stop blaming yourself!
The book Mini Habits I’m sharing with you today can help you rebuild your confidence. In this blog, I will share the ideas of the book and how I used this theory to re-establish my exercise habits and give some simple and practical mini exercise suggestions.
What are Mini Habits?
Mini habits are reading two pages a day, doing a push-up, and writing 50 words——habits so small that you think you don’t care about them.
Compared to traditional habit strategies, because mini habits actions are tiny, the total amount of willpower required is small.
In the author’s words, it means that when you develop a good habit, it will show you a path that will give you back your confidence and give you hope. It’s also a wonderful foundation on which to build a lot. Success is the mother of success, and success ignites enthusiasm and inspires action. When you are filled with a sense of accomplishment, you will want to continue to succeed.
8 Steps to Develop Mini Habits
Step 1: Choose the mini habit that suits you
Cultivate one habit less at a time; less is more, slower is faster. We always think that if we become self-disciplined one day, we will be able to develop all kinds of habits. But in fact, willpower is limited, and the best strategy is to have only one focus each day, and wake up in the morning and tell yourself that if you get that one thing done today, it’s a success.
Make the habit “small to incredible”. The first physical test, I failed the sit-ups, the second physical test before, I set myself a plan is 30 sit-ups a day, but this is too terrible for me at that time, did not stick to two days to give up. Then I was inspired by the book and started to start with a very small action, the first day to do 1 sit-up (at the time, I myself were wondering if it worked), the next day to do 2, and so on, and occasionally felt great, and then add one, so, nearly a month, a minute I can do 40 sit-ups.
Step 2: Explore the intrinsic value of each mini habit
If you are trying to change yourself because of someone else’s or society’s opinion, it won’t be long before your heart will resist. When you choose to adopt a habit, keep asking why and dig deeper into your motivation for wanting to adopt the habit. For example, many people want to work out, some will answer that they think a good body shape will make them look more attractive, or that everyone is working out, and others are looking to have a healthy body and high energy, relatively speaking, it may be the third one that will last longer because it involves their core values.
Step 3: Adding habits to the schedule based on daily life
If you usually have a fixed schedule, you can set what to do at what time each day according to the schedule you set. If the schedule is more flexible, you can set a schedule based on the way you behave.
For example, if you are at home, undisturbed, and have a more fixed schedule, you will set what to do at a certain time. So, to give me an example, when I started trying to increase my exercise to safeguard my heart health, I found that I barely had a full block of time to go to the gym to run, so I chose to jog home one stop earlier each time I got off the bus.
Step 4: Establish a reward system to enhance the sense of achievement
To get into the habit of exercising, you need to establish external rewards. Stick with exercise for seven days and reward yourself with a small gift, stick with it for a month, and a big gift, which will also motivate you to stick with it. For example, I would reward myself with a yoga legging if I keep running for two weeks and a pair of shoes if I last for a month.
Step 5: Record and track completion
You can make a list for yourself and go to bed at night to check if you have completed it.
Step 6: Start slightly and finish over
Willpower is like a muscle, it can be strengthened. Very self-disciplined people are those who have strengthened their willpower.
There are three main aspects to building habits, strengthening the will, getting progress at the moment, and not running out of willpower. These are what mini habits can offer. Mini habits are small, relatively easy to do, an effective way to exercise willpower, create a sense of accomplishment when you’re done and are so small that you won’t have an excuse for failure, won’t fear failure, and won’t feel guilty.
Step 7: Obey the schedule and get rid of high expectations
When you reach your goals, you subconsciously raise them. For example, if I exercise for half an hour, I may expect myself to exercise for forty minutes the next day, but when I don’t finish, I feel guilty and defeated. So, I must remind myself from time to time to just get our daily mini-goals done.
Step 8: Pay attention to the signs of habit formation
After a habit is formed, it is time to move on to the next habit. The main signs that a habit has been formed are
- There is no resistance: the thought of that thing does not feel difficult.
- A sense of identity: for example, feeling like a sports person.
- No need to think when you act: when you get to the point, you start to complete the set task.
- No need to worry: At first, you will feel like you will give up or miss it. After it becomes a habit, you will have the confidence that you will always be doing it unless it is urgent.
- Normalization: It becomes a norm, just like eating and sleeping.
Recommend Mini Exercises
Pick any one or two tiny actions to rebuild your exercise habit!
- Stand up for one minute every hour
- One push-up per day
- One sit-up per day
- 10 star jumps per day
- Fast running in place for 30 second every day
- Get off the bus one stop early and jog home
- Stretch after getting up and before going to bed
- Follow a song and do a dance
- If you live in an apartment, you can try to take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Jump like Mario when entering or leaving the door of the room
Do you have some tips that can encourage you to keep exercising? Welcome to share in the comments section! If you like our blogs, feel free to share them with your good friends!
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