How to change your life with tiny habits?
Reading Time: 5 minutes
We have the motivation and will to make big changes when we are already in a very bad situation. When we are hit by a serious illness, accident, job loss, or anything that has a significant impact on our lives. These are the moments when we start thinking about making changes or are even being forced to do so.
However, when our life is good and everything is more or less okay, you do not see much sense in making changes or creating new tiny habits. Why make an effort if you don’t have any troubles…
When to create habits?
But actually exactly in this situation, it is very good to engage in self-development to make your life even easier and more enjoyable. Yes, there is no need for major life-changing activities, but we can add useful tiny habits to our lives.
They can make our life progressively better and more effective over the years, so that we even don’t realize it. Eventually they can even grow to bigger changes.
How tiny habits grow?
Creating tiny habits is like growing grass one leaf at a time. At first you may not notice them in your life, but once you have enough, it is nice to walk barefoot on the soft grass (enjoy the benefits of your helpful habits). If bringing the tiny changes into your life doesn’t require much effort, why not do it?
The other possibility is that one tiny habit can get bigger and bigger. Instead of grass, you are growing a tree from a seed. From time to time, you will add the next steps to your tiny activity that has already become automatic for you.
My own experience is getting from one stretch in the morning to exercising regularly. Yes, it took years, but it somehow happened spontaneously and easily.
In the past I have set myself the goal to shape up for the swimsuit season and started training hard, but the motivation has never been long enough to really see results and rather I have fallen back in a worse situation.
But when I started to add new tiny moving habits to my days, being active became a part of me and comes naturally and effortlessly.
Where are my things?
Tiny habits can be very simple and unnoticeable. For example, where do you put your car keys? Do they have a safe place and you always know where they are? Or do you just put them somewhere, and while looking for them in the morning (being already late to work), you make a mess in your apartment to find them?
I always know that car keys are either in the right pocket of the jacket or in a safe place on the desk. It seems like a completely irrelevant habit, but if it saves you time and nerve cells, why not make that little tiny activity (putting car keys always in the same place) automatic for you.
The same goes for any other things you use during the day. Do you know where they are or you have to search them all the time? For example, I always have my hat in my jacket’s right pocket, buff in my left pocket, the right glove in my right and the left glove in my left pocket. Keys in the right pocket, phone in the left pocket (no other things to avoid scratching). I always know where they are.
Could I drink more water?
There are a lot of tiny activities in our day. For example, drinking water. It seems pointless, but if you are still not used to drinking during the day, you may be more likely to have headaches, your metabolism is not as fast as it could be, and so on.
I have repeatedly written here that my first little habit I created for myself was drinking a glass of water in the morning after brushing my teeth. I created it for myself because I drank almost nothing during the day.
Since it is always advised to drink in the morning and drink more in general, I decided to start doing it. Over the years this habit has grown from a glass in the morning to always having a filled glass of water on my desk while I work. I now have a special water bottle that I can take with me when I go out. The day is full of tiny water-drinking habits. In addition to feeling better, I am sure it has also affected my weight.
Could I have better sleep?
Tiny habits can be successfully used in a lot of situations. For example to have better sleep. In the evening, put the phone away from the bed. In the morning, put a book on the pillow to remember reading in the evening before going to sleep, and so on. I wrote about these things in more detail in a previous post (How to stop snoozing?). I recommend reading it!
Conclusion
There are a lot of tiny things you do every day. Tiny activities such as smiling, hugging, or saying a compliment can make your day and those of your loved ones so much better. Consistently engaging in such activities will eventually improve your life for sure. So why not try to add some new tiny activities to your day?
As a result of decades of research, Dr. BJ Fogg, a professor at Stanford University, has developed a special method for creating Tiny Habits®. I am a Certified Tiny Habits® Coach and I invite you to participate in the 5-days Tiny Habits course, so that you will have the skills to improve your life with easy tiny steps.
