We’re a little over a month into the new year and not into just any new year, but the year 2020.
I don’t know about you, but I felt a lot of pressure this year to come up with an amazing New Year’s resolution (or more than one). Because it’s 2020, there seemed to be even more reasons to make a New Year’s resolution and not just make this year great, but make the next decade the best decade of your life. Right? That felt like a lot of pressure to me.
According to some studies that I’ve seen, at this point of the new year, up to 80% of us have given up on our New Year’s resolution. We’re only 4-5 weeks in and 80% of us have already quit!
Strava, a technology app that can keep track of your exercise and activities, did a study in 2019 that showed that by January 19th, most people had given up on their New Year’s resolutions, at least from an exercise stand point. They called January 19th “Quitter’s Day”.
Now, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m good at starting new habits but I’m pretty terrible at sticking with them. One of the phrases that I know we all hear over and over again, that personally drives me a little nuts, is: Small habits yield big results.
While that seems true and I certainly talked about that in some of my presentations, that phrase just seems to always kinda grind me a little bit. But recently I heard a podcast interview with a gentleman named James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, and he had a metaphor and a concept that has really stuck with me. His idea brings this whole idea of small habits yielding big results just a little bit closer to home and really helps me reframe that idea a little bit more to myself and I want to share it to you.
So James talks about the importance of improving yourself just by 1%, everyday.
I am also one of those impatient people. I want to do it. I want to do the thing and I want to see my result right away. I don’t really have the time or the patience to always with stick things for a really long time. But this idea of changing ourselves or making improvements just 1% at a time, felt like a little bit of a relief to me. I thought:
“Oh, okay. One percent a day or one percent at a time. I can maybe do that.”
He has this beautiful metaphor too that I think really bring this concept home.
Imagine you are in a cold room and there’s a table with an ice cube on it. It’s so cold that you can see your breath, and ice cube stays frozen. So let’s say it’s about 25°F in this room. The idea of improvement by 1% is like trying to heat up this ice cube. You increase the temperature in the room by 1°F at a time. At 26, 27, 28 degrees— that ice cube is still frozen. You increase to 29, 30, 31— the ice cube is still frozen. It’s not until you hit 32 (or beyond that 32 mark) that you see the ice cube begin to melt. And changing ourselves and self improvement is really about turning up the temperature on that ice cube or just very similar to that idea.
So what he’s saying is that those 1° increments of increasing the room temperature are not wasted efforts. Just like the first 4 or 8 or 12 weeks of a new exercise program are not wasted efforts. You might not see the results right away. That ice cube is not going to melt when you increase by 1° at a time, but it’s not wasted.
Usually we end up quitting before we see results… before the ice cube melts.
So I hope this is helpful for you. If you have maybe already faltered on your new year’s resolutions, or you are thinking, “I didn’t make one, but kinda want to do something.” It is not too late. You can still start. You can start at anytime. But keep that in the back of your mind. When you are changing something, when you are trying something new, when you are trying to accomplish a goal, be it a personal health goal or a professional goal, that in the beginning you are only going to be turning the temperature up 1° at a time and it would take sometime to yields results, to see that ice cube melt. But just remember that:
Every step that you take, every day that you try, is turning the temperature up by 1° and you’re making 1% improvement for yourself.
So again, this concept comes from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits. Definitely check his book. He has fantastic ideas, recommendations, and research all on the idea of building habits personally and professionally. I highly recommend it. So check that out.
Now, I want to hear from you! What do you think about this concept? Does this this metaphor, this perspective help you at all in changing how you feel about your New Year’s resolutions or habits?
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