One of the basic ideas in creating habits that I’ve been exploring the last while is:

Start small, and then increase the level by ‘baby-steps’.

This leads to the question, what are good ideas for increasing the level? This is what I’ve found so far:

1. Keep the steps small, because that makes it easy. If at any given point the next step is easy, it is more likely that you will continue doing the action.

2. However, the steps should be meaningful. That is, going from 1 minute of exercise to 1 minute 1 second, on a weekly basis, will not be a meaningful increase in exercise. You want it to be meaningful in the sense that it is a) useful, and b) increases your motivation as it gives you a sense of important progress.

The tension comes from balancing point 1. and 2. Too small, and you don’t get meaningful results and lose motivation. Too large, and you quit because it’s too difficult. How do you resolve this?

The answer I have found so far is:

1. Rely on an internal sense of what will be big enough to give you a sense of meaningful progress. This will be different for different people and different activities, but pay attention to what your intuition is telling you.

2. Take the leap, but conditionally. If your intuition tells you that you need to increase from 5 minutes to 10 minutes to feel like you’re getting a significant amount of progress, but another part of you fears that you’ll stop doing the activity if you make that large of an increase, don’t commit yourself to it, but simply try it out. If you find that the increase is causing you to stop enjoying the activity, or if you find that you start skipping the activity, then you can pull back, down to a lower amount (in this example, say try out 7 minutes instead). So, keep an experimental approach.

Good habit creating!