Designing a Winning Strategy: Working With Your Brain
Knowing why your brain resists change is one thing; knowing how to gently persuade it to come on board is another. The goal is not to overpower your brain’s instincts but to create a system where the desired choice is the easiest choice. This is the art of thoughtful habit design.
Start with the Minimum Viable Action
One of the biggest mistakes we make when building new habits is starting too big. Our motivation is high, so we commit to an hour at the gym or meditating for 30 minutes. This works for a few days, but the sheer effort required makes it unsustainable. When motivation inevitably wanes, the habit collapses under its own weight.
The solution is the minimum viable action. This is the smallest, most laughably easy version of your desired habit—an action so simple you can’t say no to it. Want to build a flossing habit? Start by flossing just one tooth. Want to meditate? Start by sitting and taking one deep breath. Want to read more? Start by reading one page.
The purpose of the minimum viable action is not to achieve a dramatic result in one day. Its purpose is to overcome the inertia of starting and to cast a vote for your new identity. It gets the habit loop started. You can always do more, but the victory lies in simply showing up. By making the starting line impossibly easy to cross, you remove the friction and internal negotiation that so often prevent us from beginning at all.
Conduct a Friction Audit
Every action we take has a certain amount of friction associated with it. Friction is anything that makes a behavior more difficult. To get to the gym, you have to pack a bag, change your clothes, drive there, and find parking. To watch another episode on Netflix, you just have to let the autoplay do its work. It’s no wonder which one often wins.
To build good habits, you must decrease friction. To break bad habits, you must increase it. This is where a “friction audit” comes in. For the new habit you want to build, ask yourself: What are all the little steps that stand between me and doing this action? Then, systematically remove them.
If you want to run in the morning, lay out your running clothes, shoes, and headphones the night before. The friction of “getting ready” is reduced to zero. If you want to eat a healthier breakfast, prep overnight oats so they are waiting for you in the fridge. Conversely, if you want to watch less TV, unplug it after each use and put the remote in another room. The added steps increase the friction just enough to make you pause and consider if you really want to watch.
Design Your Environment for Success
Your environment is one of the most powerful cues in your habit loop. The things you see and interact with every day trigger your automatic behaviors. If a bowl of cookies is on the kitchen counter, you will think about cookies every time you walk by. If your phone is on your desk, you will be cued to check it constantly.
Instead of relying on self-control to resist these cues, redesign your environment to make your desired habits obvious and your undesired habits invisible. Want to practice guitar? Take it out of its case and put it on a stand in the middle of your living room. Want to drink more water? Place a water bottle on your desk, by your bed, and on the kitchen counter. Make the cues for your good habits impossible to miss.
A powerful technique for leveraging environmental cues is habit stacking. This involves linking your new, desired habit to an existing, established one. The old habit acts as the cue for the new one. The formula is simple: “After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”
For example: “After I pour my morning coffee, I will sit down and meditate for one minute.” Or, “After I take off my work shoes, I will change into my gym clothes.” By piggybacking on a pre-existing neural pathway, you make it far easier for your brain to adopt the new behavior.
Embrace Gentle Accountability
While the journey of habit change is personal, you don’t have to go it alone. Gentle accountability can provide the right amount of social structure to keep you on track. This doesn’t mean finding a drill sergeant to yell at you. It means finding a supportive partner or group where you can share your intentions and progress.
This could be a friend you text each day after you complete your minimum viable action. It could be a shared calendar with a spouse where you both mark off your daily walks. The act of stating your intention to another person makes it more real and raises the stakes just enough to make you more likely to follow through, especially on days when your internal motivation is low.
