My Top Two Habit Tips

Join me this week as I share my top two HABIT TIPS, including:

• WHY - and why uncovering the deeper driver is imperative to building a sustainable habit 
• Three questions to uncover your deeper WHY 
• Two pieces of writing advice that are applicable to any habit (that I think about all the time)
• Exactly how to make a break a habit down into the smallest commitment (so you can do it even on your busiest days)
• Building a habit from self-kindness (versus pressure, shoulds, urgency)

Next week, I'm going to share exactly how I establish a new habit. It's the process that I follow, I wanted to start here so that you can listen to this as a primer and use these tips when you listen to, and implement, How to Build a Habit. 

This week: experiment and see how it lands for you, and I will see you here next week, and we'll talk all about how to build a new habit.

Resources

Want to begin a journaling habit? The Daily Writing Prompts are supportive and thoughtful prompts to discover what you believe is possible for you, what you want, and what's in the way right now. Learn more HERE

If you want to feel intuitive in your creative practice, AND tap into your one-in-eight-billion perspective and contribution, head to www.jenmoulton.com/newsletter and get my Intuitive Creation Audio - you'll learn a unique process to reliably tap in BEFORE you make any creative work so you can overcome procrastination, overwhelm, and where-do-i-start-itis. 

Get the transcript and full show notes HERE

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Episode Transcript

Scarlett 2i2 USB (00:24):
Welcome to today's episode, My Top Two
Habit Tips.
If you're wanting to establish anew habit today I'm going to
share my two top tips with you,wow that was a tongue twister.
The first tip is find the reasonwhy you want to do this habit.

(00:44):
And I'm going to also say do thehabit consistently too.
Cause that's, that's part of itthat we build into it.
There's a habit and then there'shabit you do consistently.
We think those are the samething, but they're actually not
really the same thing.
Or I guess I should say doingthe habit consistently is not
necessarily implied in having ahabit.
Just throwing that out there,food for thought.

(01:07):
So you need to find the reasonwhy you really want to do the
habit consistently.
My second tip is you need tomake it really easy to do.
Let's dive into these.
Actually before we dive intothem, let's think about why we
might not keep up a habit first,we'll look at that, to filter
these tips through, and thenwe'll dig in deeper.

(01:28):
So I think a lot of ussubconsciously want to have
certain habits because we thinkwe should, society tells us to,
or we think that it will get ussomething that we want.
And I'm going to guess thatthose three reasons are not
really compelling to you, atleast not deep down.
And they probably aren't high onyour values list either.

(01:52):
If you are trying to establish anew habit and you find that you
aren't doing it, you're notdoing the habit and/or you're
not doing it consistently,depends on where you are with
this, I think it's highly likelythat you're not doing one of
these two tips I'm sharing withyou today.
It's either not easy to do oryou don't know WHY, like really
why you want to do it?

(02:13):
Here's how to discover WHY youwant to do a certain habit.
It's an inquiry, self inquiryprocess.
Ask yourself these questions andbuild on them too, riff on them.
So these are just questions foryou to start with: why do I
really want to have this habit?
Like really deep down why do Iwant to have it?

(02:35):
So if it's an exercise habit,why do you want to have an
exercise habit?
What is the goal?
That's underneath the habit.
What need might it meet for me?
I think that's such a goodquestion.
You might think you want to havea certain habit, like let's say
it's a writing habit.
And you're like, I want to dothis because I want to write a

(02:57):
book someday or because I wantto dump out my thoughts before I
start my day something likethat.
That might be what you're awareof, but deep down you might be
meeting a deeper need that youhave.
And it's really good to knowthat because that will actually
motivate you to do the habitthat you want to have,
especially in times when youmight not feel like it, or life
is demanding, or you're tired,or something else.

(03:20):
Last question is what do Ireally want?
And you might discover that theanswer to that question, what do
I really want?
leads you to wanting a differenthabit than you might be thinking
about right now.
So it's really good to spendtime with those questions with
the goal of uncovering, why areyou wanting to set this
particular habit that you'rethinking about, and maybe being

(03:41):
open to letting it change ormorph depending on what you
uncover within yourself.
And then in regards to tipnumber two, making it so easy to
do.
Here's how to do that.
It's actually really simple,right?
So you break it down into thesmallest imaginable task and set
that as your expectation foryourself.

(04:04):
I know that it's tempting todive in and do all the things
the first day, or to spend themost time on it in the first few
days when you're really excitedabout it.
When it's fresh and new andinvigorating.
But you want to leave someexcitement and energy in the
tank.
I heard that as writing adviceonce: to stop, it was actually

(04:24):
around writing like long formwriting so writing like a book
or something like that.
Stop writing while you're stillexcited to be getting it on the
page so that there's some leftin the tank, I put that in air
quotes, for tomorrow.
And the same can be true forjournaling, for exercising,
literally for any habit.
And I have found this to bereally true.

(04:46):
If you write until you'reexhausted, if I write until I'm
really exhausted, I've foundthat it's much more likely that
I will feel resistance the nextday to get into it.
It's kind of like overdid it,right.
Versus tempering yourself,tempering your excitement and
enthusiasm, and believing thatleaving some in the tank for
the, for the next day or thenext time that you revisit it,

(05:09):
will like, it's kind of likeleaving some like creative
juices in your brain too, is howI'm seeing it.
Like leave some things in yourbrain to pick up.
Another piece of writing adviceI've heard which again, we can
apply this in lots of differentways, is to like leave a
sentence unfinished or startwhen you're writing, write the
next sentence and leave it, sothat you can pick it back up

(05:31):
again.
It's like easy to dive backinto.
That's the goal here?
Let's make it compelling andeasy for you to jump in and to,
you know, kind of come in and doyour work and then leave when
you're done and leave it in aplace for yourself where you're
excited to pick it back up.
So other things that can behelpful, a couple other small

(05:52):
tips to support these two maintop tips that I'm sharing today
is to start really small.
Break it down and make it soeasy that you can't imagine not
doing it, even on the busiest ormost demanding day that you
have.
And by that, I mean, think aboutit like a win, like something
that if you just do this, thenyou've won.
You did the habit, you checkedit off.

(06:14):
It's not like, oh, this is a dayI just cannot get to that
because it's demanding, or it'stoo big, I have too much going
on, I'm tired.
Instead, it's like, oh, that'sso easy.
I can just do that.
So an example I want to sharewith you is that when you're
starting a writing habit, youmight commit to just writing
down the date and the day'sjournal prompt and that's it.

(06:37):
And maybe you write onesentence.
Like build something like that,make it so small and manageable
that you can stack up your winsand you can get to it even on
the most demanding day.
That is how you're going tobuild that resilience muscle,
you're going to build wins.
You're going to want to keepshowing up and doing it because
it feels good.
Another tip, another thing thatcan be helpful, and this is just

(07:00):
a seed I want to plant, there'smore to this is to build the
habit with self kindness andcare.
This is built into the WHY doyou want to do this?
There's the, you know, maybesocietal pressures,
conditioning, other things thatwe want to build a habit because
we think it means somethingabout us, because we think it's
going to get us something wewant, et cetera, and that will

(07:22):
come from urgency and pressureand striving.
Another way to do that is tobuild the habit from
self-kindness and care foroneself.
It's like making a deposit intoyour self-energy tank every day
or however, whatever frequencyyou're going to be doing it.
And to view the habit thatyou're creating through that

(07:43):
lens of self-kindness and selfcare.
And reminding yourself as you'redoing it, and as you're building
the habit, muscle and theresilience and the commitment,
et cetera.
And then the last helpful tip isto commit to having the identity
for 90 days.
This is one of my favoritethings ever to do.

(08:03):
So I'm going to explain thisthrough an example.
Let's say that the habit youwant is to journal every day.
So what this would sound like,taking on this identity for 90

days is (08:13):
for the next 90 days, I am a daily journaler.
And even if time passes and Idon't journal every day, even if
I miss a month, for the nextthree months, I am a daily
journaler.
You're taking on that identitywithin yourself.
And you will do the habit attimes, you know, we're not going
to commit to any consistency inthis example because it's very

(08:36):
dependent on life, and I don'tbelieve in being hard on
yourself to create a habit,obviously.
But when you have the identityit just like sets you up so that
you can dip into it and you cankeep doing it.
And maybe on some days it willhelp you get up and do it, even
when you're struggling or busyor tired, like all the things
we're talking about here.

(08:57):
So taking on that identity,there's no harm in doing that
with yourself.
But committing to it and seeingif that changes the way that you
develop this habit.
Just an experiment, right,something to try.
Okay.
So those are my habit tips, mytop two habit tips.

Just to review them are (09:13):
finding the reason WHY you want the
habit, and also why you want todo it consistently if that's
important to you.
And then habit tip number twois: you need to make it easy to
do, breaking it down until it'sso small and manageable that you
can get a win even on yourbusiest day.

(09:35):
Next week, I'm going to shareexactly how I establish a new
habit.
It's the process that I follow,I wanted to start here so that
you can listen to this as aprimer and use these tips when
you listen to, and implement,How to Build a Habit.
So experiment with these thisweek and see how it lands for

(09:56):
you, and I will see you herenext week, and we'll talk all
about how to build a new habit.
I am so glad that you were hereand that we get to walk our
paths together.
See you next time.
Same time, same place.
Bye for now.