How Simple Mini Habits Can Change Your Life

By Stephen Guise

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” ~Alan Watts

It was late 2012, just after Christmas, and like many others I was reflecting on the year.
I realized that I had ample room for improvement in too many areas of my life, but knowing that New Year’s Resolutions have a poor 8% success rate (University of Scranton research), I wanted to explore some other options. I knew I wanted to start before January 1st too, because arbitrary start dates don’t sit well with me.
On December 28th, I decided that I wanted to get in great shape. In the previous days and weeks, however, I hardly exercised at all and felt quite guilty about it. My goal was a 30-minute workout, and it seemed impossible.


I wasn’t motivated, I was tired, and my guilt was making me feel worthless. Feeling stuck, I remembered a technique I learned from a book, and little did I know that this technique would change my life in a big way in 2013.
The technique is from the creativity book Thinkertoys, and it is to consider the opposite of an idea you’re stuck on. So I looked at my 30-minute exercise goal, and my giant fitness plan to get in great shape, and I thought about the opposite.
You could say the opposite is eating fast food and sitting on the couch, but the opposite that came to my mind was one of size.


What if, instead of carrying around this overwhelming fitness anvil on my shoulders, I just did one push-up?
Initially, I scoffed at the idea. How absurd to do a single push-up and act as if it means anything! But when I continued to struggle with my bigger plans, I finally gave in to the idea and did one, and since I was already in push-up position, I did a few more.
After that, my muscles were warmed up, and I decided to try one pull-up. Just like you guessed, I ended up doing several more. Eventually, I had exercised for 30 minutes.
My mind was blown—did I just turn a single push-up into a full workout? Yes, yes I did.

The One Push-Up Challenge Is Born

From here, I challenged my blog readers to do at least one push-up per day for a full year. People have had great success with it, and here’s what it turned into for me: For the last 3+ months, I have gone to the gym three to six times per week to exercise and I’m in great shape because of it. Now I know why it works.
I have always held a keen interest in psychology and neuroscience, and I study them for my writing. So when I read about the studies on willpower that show it’s a limited resource, everything started making sense.


I couldn’t do my 30-minute workout because my willpower wasn’t strong enough or was depleted. But I could do one push-up and segue into a 30-minute workout because it only required a tiny amount of willpower to start, after which my body and mind stopped resisting the idea.
Of course, this concept does not only apply to fitness, but to any area of your life you wish to change. And I believe I’ve found the perfect way to leverage this technique – habits.

What’s More Important Than Your Habits?

Nothing. Habits form about 45% of your total behavior, according to a Duke University study. Not only that, but they are behaviors that you repeat frequently, which compounds their significance in your life. Habits are your foundation, and if this foundation is weak, you won’t be happy with the way you live.


The reason people fail to change their lives, and fail to instill new habits, is because they try to do too much at once. In simplest terms, if your new habit requires more willpower than you can muster, you will fail. If your new habit requires less willpower than you can muster, you will succeed.
The calculation can’t just be for one instance, however, but also for when you’re tired and your willpower is zapped. Can you continue it then?
One thing I’ve been wanting to do more is write. It’s therapeutic for me and I write for a living, so it’s fairly important that I practice. When I found that I wasn’t writing as much as I should, I found out how to combine the power of The One Push-Up Challenge with a habit plan.

How To Change Your Life With Mini Habits

Mini habits are exactly as they sound. First, you choose a desired habit or change you’d like to make—it could be thinking more positively, writing 1000 words a day, or reading two books per week. I’ve had success doing three at once.
Next, you shrink these habits down until they are “stupid small,” a term I made up because when you say the requirement out loud, it is so small that it sounds stupid. Here are mine:
1. Write 50 words per day (article, story, etc.)
2. Write 50 words per day (for the habits book I’m writing)
3. Read two pages in a book per day
Easy, right? I could complete this list in ten minutes total. So far, I’ve met these daily requirements 100% of the time, and then much more.
I’ve actually written one to two thousand words and read 10-30 pages per day, for these 12 days in a row and counting. Prior to this, I wasn’t reading at all and writing very little.
It works because your brain falls for the bait.
“Oh, only 50 words? I can write that.”
And then you start. And you’ll find, like I have, that one you start, good things happen.

Ten Daily Mini Habit Ideas

1. Compliment one person
2. Think two positive thoughts
3. Meditate for one minute
4. Name three things you’re thankful for
5. Do one push-up
6. Write 50 words
7. Read two pages
8. Do ten jumping jacks
9. Go outside and take 100 steps
10. Drink one glass of water
You can change nearly any area of your life; and at one mini habit at a time, it’s easier than you think.
When you remove the pressure and expectations, you allow yourself to start.
What mini habit(s) will you start today?
Photo by Digo_Souza

About Stephen Guise

Stephen Guise is the author of Mini Habits: Smaller Steps Bigger Results. Happy new year sale: get 50% off Mini Habits until January 2nd!

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hHow to make doing core work an automatic habit

For weeks (okay, months—probably years), I have been telling myself I need to do more exercises to strengthen my core. Not only do exercises like planks make me look better, they also do important things for my posture and my comfort. When my core is weak I feel it in my sore lower back.

I know exactly what exercise routine would whip things back into shape. When I’m driving, or even when I’m out for a run, I’ve frequently told myself exactly how I’m going to start doing all those exercises again consistently – but it hasn’t happened.

So, after reading Maria’s book, I noticed my husband and me both complaining about our (sore) lower backs. And in less than five minutes, we decided to apply the science I had just been reading.

• We defined a new habit – regular consistent core work with an important goal (no more back aches and more ease).
• We chose what Maria calls a “ridiculously small step.” This is something that was so easy to do, it was practically a no-brainer. We decided that committing to one minute (yes, 60 seconds) of core work, every single day, was something we could absolutely do with confidence. Given my current fitness, I committed to doing a 60 second plank every single day.

High achiever warning: This ridiculously small step thing is harder than it sounds. If you try this at home, you may very likely find yourself tempted to “add on” to make your effort “worthwhile.” Before the sentence was even out of my mouth, my husband and I both started thinking of how we could do more (“We could do side planks too!” “I could add in some stretches!” “I know some pilates moves that would be good!”) Don’t let this happen to you. Maria makes an excellent point. Don’t overwhelm yourself. If you want to trick your brain into creating a habit, aim for ease over effort.

• We made it a ritual by deciding when and where it would happen (every morning, first thing, right outside the bedroom, before going downstairs).
• We connected the new habit to ones that were solid and almost automatic for us. (We’ll do our 60 second plank in the morning, immediately after we brush our teeth, and before we have our first mug of coffee).

Note: This step has been incredibly important. Brushing my teeth has now started to trigger me to think of my “next” habit. Also, both of us have separately had the experience of starting to drink our morning coffee and realizing, “Shoot! Need to do a plank!” It sounds crazy, but it has really happened. And here’s the lovely thing. Because our new habit is so simple, it isn’t a big deal to drop down on the kitchen floor and throw in that plank. A minute isn’t even long enough for the coffee to get cold.

The verdict? We both agree that we are surprisingly unstuck. Since December 13 – through vacation and holidays, sleeping in, visitors, and routine changes, we’ve only missed two days.  Our backs are stronger, stomachs a bit flatter, and the pain is gone. The planks have gotten easier and doing them is pretty automatic now. Even more interesting, I’ve found myself throwing in little one minute stretches and core exercises at other times of day. We’ll see where this leads…..

Go here to learn more about Surprisingly…Unstuck: The Power of Small Healthy Habits, In a World Addicted to Instant Results.

Take good care,

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excerpt from Lrry R William

i have developed a powerful and profitable belief system

i believe my current trade will be a loser...a big loser at that

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change from Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford

BJ Fogg's believes the tinier the habit, the easier it is to take on for good. New habits also need to be set up right. In fact, the trick is all about how to design the habits so that they are a source of positive emotions, leading to automatic behaviors. Tiny habits are things you can do at least once a day, in less than 30 seconds, and with little effort. Tiny habits must take place after a solid habit that always happens in your life. And you must learn to declare victory after each successful completion of a tiny habit. This is how you will rewire your brain to associate the new tiny habit with positive emotions, hence reinforcing yourself making your new habits “tiny” will help make the adoption process easier. Small and even minuscule goals are far more attainable and leave less room for excuses. B.J. Fogg, PhD is a social scientist and behavior researcher at Stanford University. He says many people don’t make their new goals and habits small enough. They shoot for the moon, so to speak, and their unrealistic goals become a setup for failure. Instead, he says, we need to aim smaller start with one single, small habit and focusing on that habit specifically for three weeks. In that time, the process of the habit should become almost second nature and after that you’ll be ready to add more to the mix. 1. Keep your new habits small, attainable and realistic. 2. Set cues or triggers that will precede the new behavior. 3. Execute the new habit consistently for a set period of time. 4. Reward yourself. 5. Repeat as necessary.