Daniel Knecht

There is a common fallacy that exists in claiming that while discipline is useful, just build habits or systems instead and you never have to think about using your willpower again. All you need is a little bit of willpower at the beginning and voila, solved.

I have found this to be true only so long as all the right environmental factors are in place to support that new habit. But what happens when you are overly reliant on habits you built 5 or 10 years ago and suddenly something drastically changes in your environment, stopping the habit loop right in its tracks? You will find yourself floundering…

While deliberate habit formation is an incredibly important skills to master, one must remain vigilant and keep your decision muscles alive and active every single day. Pick something you absolutely hate doing, and endeavor to make that thing a part of your life. Maybe its planking. Right now, I hate turning the water to freezing temperature in my shower in the middle of November at 5AM, but I know that I need to do it in order to develop the reflex and trust that in the event my habits fail due to a broken habit chain variable (cue, craving, action, reward), I will have enough baseline battery juice to install a new habit – which requires many days of sustained effort before becoming automatic. Another approach to this could be to consistently add new habits or modify existing ones on a monthly or quarterly basis. This ensures the muscle needed to build the habit to begin with never atrophies. Some people embark on 30-day challenges to practice this skill as well. Just be sure you have a new challenge when the 30-days are up.

The more your practice doing things you hate, the stronger the capacity to stay consistent on any long-term task grows within you. Back in college, I did interval HIIIT running 6 days per week in the AM for between 30-40 minutes on the treadmill. During these sessions, I would run at a high speed and feel the lactic acids burning in my legs and stomach. I would do 7-8 intervals for up to 1 minute of sprints for each repetition. My mind would scream at me to stop but I would push onwards. This was never a habit. I was unintentionally training the foundation of ability we all need to install new habits. This practice was how I was able to stay consistent on my training for 6 months. Only in retrospect, many many years later do I realize why it was effective.

Before embarking on any self-improvement in your life, practice one thing daily that you hate to do. It can be 5 minutes or less even. Expand your tolerance over time. If you can get to the level of sustained physical and emotional discomfort for 5-10 minutes on one thing you hate but know is good for you, any goal becomes 10,000% more attainable.

Embrace the suck. This is highly individual. You might love ice cold showers or HIIT training, if you love it, that’s great, I’m proud of you, but that is not the thing you must choose.