Start Simple: Do One Thing Differently

If you want to make a change to your life, but don’t know where to start, start as simple as you can. 

Do just one thing differently.

That’s it. One thing. If you are successful in making that change, great. But start with one.

And if even that seems like a lot, here are 4 ways to make it even easier:

1: Start smaller than you think you should and then make it smaller

Want to exercise an hour a day? Too much. Aim for 5 minutes. 5 minutes seems questionable? Aim for 2. Keep cutting it down until it is so small that you would be embarrassed not to be able to do it.

2. Decide when/where/how you will do it beforehand.

Don’t give yourself a chance to think about it. It is always harder to motivate in the moment. Decide beforehand: “When I get up, I will do 2 push-ups”.

3. Use an external support structure

Put it in your calendar, commit out loud to friends, family or whoever sits next to you, convince someone to do it with you, or make it a contest. Get your commitment out of your head and into the real world.

4. Celebrate Tiny Successes

Did you do the 2 push-ups today? Congratulations, your new “Personal Best” (PB) is 1 day! Do it again, tomorrow? 2 days!! Seems silly, but trust me, it works. Skipping a day here or there? Switch to “Lifetime PB”, which goes up every time you do it.

And that’s it. They say it takes 30 days to form a habit , and from my experience, that’s pretty spot on. So once your Personal Best is 30 days, you can generally stop counting, because chances are you now just “do it” as part of your routine. 

Didn’t make it to 30 days? Doesn’t matter. Try again. Not feeling it? Try something different. The only constant in life is change, so you might as well make it change that you want .