The principles that helped me start and sustain a habit to exercise - Part 2

In last week’s newsletter, I covered a few principles that helped me reach 3 perfect months of activity, 107 days and counting of move streak and 1 million and counting of steps. Some of the principles I applied deliberately and some are reflection in hindsight.

To continue on the same topic of principles, I elaborate the below principles and how it helped in achieving the same results. 

Set routine

One of the important factors to sustain a habit is to reduce the cognitive load of deciding when that habit occurs each day. Having a set routine for a specific habit will greatly increase the probability of that habit to be performed. The time of the day is less relevant. However, knowing when you will perform the habit is vital. Morning, noon or night is a great start. It can be further improved to indicate after what activity this habit is performed. In my case, I exercised after I woke up in the morning and freshened up.  

Set routine = After X, I do the habit A

Multiple flavours of the same behaviour

One of the negative aspects of a set routine is that our brain does not like it and will not release the dopamine reward chemical at the same levels after a few days of performing the same habit. Even though the habit did produce abundant dopamine for the few iterations of performing the habit. 

One way to overcome this process is to have different flavours of the same habit. In my case of exercise, given that it was summer in Toronto, I went out for a walk in nature. I had at least 5 trails that I could go for a walk, which helped in having flavors. Additionally, on some days I skipped the walk and went to the gym to lift weights. On a few other days, exercise meant stretches at home, depending on how I felt that particular day. The important point was that it was still a set routine of exercising in the morning after I woke up. 

Exercise Flavours = Walk OR Lift weights in gym OR Stretches at Home

In general,
Habit Flavours = Habit Variation A or B or C    

External motivators

Even with the set routine and different flavours of exercise, the beautiful rings completion visualization within the activity tracker app on apple watch was a great external motivator. To complete the rings and see the complete rings next to the previous day's completed rings provided much satisfaction. It acted as an additional push on some days when needed. The principle behind external motivators is accountability. You could have accountability in different ways. In my case, it was seeing those completed rings. It could also be that you have a community of folks who encourage each other within that community that motivates you to complete the habit. 

External motivators = Accountability to perform the habit A 

External factors

Coming to the last principle, I can’t deny how beneficial having summer, sun and long days was for sustaining the habit. It’s to be seen if I can continue to exercise each day with all the above principles in mind during peak January, February winter in Toronto, without this external factor. Probably, I will be able to sustain a reduced effort exercise routine. It’s to be validated this winter. 

External factor such as sun = Accelerators that sustain the habit 

A recap then of all the principles mentioned in last week’s and this week’s newsletter. 

The principles -

• Identity and behaviour

• Establish behaviour - By starting small

• Long term outcomes

• Set routine

• Multiple flavours of the same behaviour

• External motivators

• External factors

Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed exercising this summer and reflecting on it through the two week’s newsletter. Here’s a shout out to your journey of starting and sustaining a habit. It feels daunting at the beginning but it’s possible. Good luck to you in your journey.