In 2022 I read Atomic Habits by James Clear. One of my biggest takeaways from the book was this: Where we are now is a result of the habits we have. If we come home from work and don’t leave the couch until we go to bed, that’s a habit that will likely have an impact on our physical health. If we go to a store and buy based on our emotions and without a budget or plan for what we’re buying, that affects our financial situation. Atomic Habits taught me that if I want my now to look different, I have to make some changes to how I behave and the habits I have—even if those changes are small. If I come home from work and do a quick 10-minute workout, that’s 50 minutes of additional exercise in one workweek!
As I ponder if change is possible, I have no doubt that it is. But I think we have to go about it in the right way. When it comes to how we change, I think that’s where the trouble starts. For most people, we expect that we can make monumental changes by flipping a switch—we can go from not running for years to expecting ourselves to run a marathon next week. We don’t account for the fact that marathon runners work their way to this position over a long period of time.
Then, we expect these huge shifts in other areas too. We expect that once we start watching our finances, we’ll have our debt paid off that month. We think that once we start trying to have a healthier sleep schedule, we’ll be getting eight hours of sleep each night. We want to decide to change and for the change to instantaneously happen.
This really boils down to that we want to change to be easy. It’s easy to decide to change, it’s a lot harder to actually do it consistently. A few problems then arise as our expectations and reality differ. First, expecting things to be quick and easy, we inevitably become disappointed when neither is the case. Planning to work out is much easier than actually doing it. Second, we expect change to be instantly rewarding. When it becomes hard and we’re also not seeing the rewards of our efforts, we’re quick to jump ship. Once we start following a stricter budget, we find that money usually accumulates slower than we expect. Again, we want to decide to change, for it to happen, and for the reward to be immediately apparent. Third, in most cases, when change is most successful, it happens gradually over time. This can cause us to feel like nothing is happening and like our hard work is not worth the effort. The mistake here is that we’re not factoring in the compounding effect of time.
On my last point, that change happens gradually over time, I think of my time in grad school. Grad school is a lot of work. On top of working 40 hours a week, I would also easily put in another 20-30 hours (or more!) of work for grad school. Many times, I sat back and wondered if it was worth it. It didn’t feel like I was learning, it would feel like my ways of thinking were maybe too rigid, and the list of doubts goes on. I also struggled to keep in touch with friends, find time for family, keep my house clean, etc. But, after two years in the program, I look back to who I was before, and now it’s almost comical to me that I question if I’m learning and changing. In many ways, the shifts are monumental. Even putting in extreme amounts of time, the change was so gradual that I didn’t notice from day to day, or month to month that there was change.
As we try to change, there are a few points we need to keep in mind to have the best chance of being successful with our change. First, over time, small changes turn into big changes. If you don’t work out at all now, working out for 10 minutes, 2-3 times per week will result in 17-26 hours of exercise in a year! Don’t be afraid to start “small”. Second, be as consistent as possible but keep in mind that things come up. When that happens, remember that one is greater than zero. Even if you can’t do 10 minutes of exercise today, do what you can. Just because you can’t do 10 doesn’t mean you do zero. Can you do five minutes? Four? One? Something is better than nothing, so choose something. Third, stick with it even if it doesn’t feel like anything is changing. Change will likely happen gradually, making it easy to miss. If someone adjusts the thermostat by one degree every hour for the next 10 hours, this will be much less noticeable than if they changed it by 10 degrees right now. Make your change the same—let it happen over time.
Finally, keep this proverb in mind: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Start with a small change, be consistent, and let time do the hard work.
