Small Habits That Change Your Life: The 1% Better Approach
Tomorrow I'm getting up earlier. I'm drinking more water. I'm exercising every day. I'm going to stop scrolling on my phone, start reading before bed, keep the house tidy, journal and somehow become one of those people who remembers to take their vitamins without finding the unopened bottle six months later.
Sometimes I'll even buy a new notebook for the occasion.
Because obviously this notebook is going to be the one that finally sorts my life out.
And for approximately three days?
I'm incredible.
Then Thursday arrives.
I'm tired. Something unexpected happens. I miss one thing on my shiny new routine and suddenly the whole operation has collapsed.
The notebook is abandoned.
The water bottle is on the kitchen counter.
And I'm back on the sofa scrolling through videos about other people's 5am morning routines while sipping that glass of wine to make me feel better.
If any of this sounds familiar, I have some good news.
I don't think we're bad at habits. I think we're trying to change too much at once.
The problem with the "new me" approach
There's something incredibly satisfying about deciding you're going to overhaul your life.
Starting tomorrow feels exciting.
Doing five minutes of something every day?
Not quite as thrilling.
It doesn't exactly scream personal transformation.
But I've started to realise that the boring option might actually be the clever one.
Instead of asking:
"How can I completely change my life?"
I've started asking:
"What's one tiny thing I could make slightly better?"
And that's where the whole 1% better idea comes in.
What does getting 1% better actually mean?
The basic idea is ridiculously simple.
Instead of making a massive change that requires huge amounts of motivation, you make a tiny improvement that's easy enough to repeat.
And I mean tiny.
Want to read more?
Don't decide you're reading a book a week. Read five pages tonight.
Want to drink more water?
Don't suddenly aim for three litres and spend your entire day looking for a toilet. Put a decent water bottle on your desk and finish that first.
Want to exercise more?
Don't create a six-day training schedule when you've currently been doing zero. Start with a ten-minute walk.
Want your mornings to feel less chaotic?
Put your clothes out tonight.
None of these things are particularly impressive.
That's kind of the point.
Why tiny changes can work better
Big changes rely heavily on motivation.
And motivation is a wonderfully unreliable little thing.
At 9am on January 1st, motivation thinks we're capable of anything.
At 7pm on a rainy Wednesday when we're hungry and tired?
Motivation has left the building.
Tiny habits don't need quite as much enthusiasm.
If your goal is "go to the gym for an hour", there are going to be days when that feels like an enormous effort.
If your goal is "put my trainers on and go outside for ten minutes", the argument your brain can make against it gets considerably weaker.
And once you've started, you might do more.
But you don't have to.
That's an important bit.
Because we're not secretly making a tiny habit while expecting ourselves to do the big version every time.
The small version still counts.
I think this is where I've gone wrong before
I've always liked the idea of a fresh start.
New week.
New month.
New year.
New notebook.
Suddenly I have a 14-step morning routine despite yesterday considering brushing my hair an achievement.
The problem wasn't that I couldn't do those things.
I could.
I just couldn't sustainably become a different person overnight.
And I think a lot of us accidentally build habits for our ideal selves rather than our actual lives.
Ideal Me wakes up early naturally, stretches, journals, drinks water, makes a lovely matcha and somehow doesn't look at her phone.
Actual Me sometimes wakes up and immediately wants to know what everyone on the internet has been doing while I was asleep.
So the habit has to work for Actual Me.
Otherwise we've got a problem.
Make the good thing easier
This might be my favourite habit trick because it requires very little willpower.
Instead of constantly trying to become more disciplined, change your environment so the thing you want to do is easier.
If you want to drink more water, put the bottle where you can see it.
If you want to read before bed, leave the book on your pillow.
If you want to exercise in the morning, put your workout clothes somewhere you'll practically trip over them.
If you want to stop losing half an hour to your phone every time you pick it up, charge it somewhere slightly inconvenient.
If you want to plan your day, leave your planner open on your desk with a pen beside it.
You're basically leaving tiny clues for Future You.
And Future You needs all the help they can get.
This is also where I think buying the right things can genuinely help.
Not because you need a £40 planner to develop a habit.
You absolutely don't.
But if having a water bottle you actually like carrying, a simple habit tracker, a nice notebook you want to leave on your desk, a proper alarm clock so your phone doesn't need to live beside your bed, or a walking pad that makes movement easier while you're working removes friction from something you're trying to do, that's useful.
I've put the habit helpers I actually think are worth looking at [here].
Not a list of 47 things you apparently need to become a functioning human. Just the things that can genuinely make certain habits easier.
Try this instead of changing your entire life
Here's what I want you to do.
Pick one thing.
Not seven.
So instead of:
"I'm going to read every night."
Try:
"I'll read two pages before bed."
Instead of:
"I'm going to get fit."
Try:
"I'll walk for ten minutes after lunch."
Instead of:
"I'm going to keep the house tidy."
Try:
"I'll do a five-minute reset before I sit down in the evening."
Instead of:
"I need to be more productive."
Try:
"I'll write down the three things I actually need to finish tomorrow."
Do that one thing for a while.
When it starts to feel normal rather than something you're constantly negotiating with yourself about, then think about adding something else.
And when you inevitably miss a day...
This bit matters.
Don't turn one missed day into a personality assessment.
You didn't go for your walk today.
Fine.
You haven't "failed at consistency".
You're a human being who didn't go for a walk.
Go tomorrow.
This is something I'm trying to get much better at because it's ridiculously easy to think:
"Well, I've ruined it now."
As though missing Tuesday means Wednesday has been legally cancelled.
It hasn't.
One imperfect day doesn't undo anything.
The habit you're trying to build isn't "do this perfectly forever."
It's keep coming back to it.
That's a very different goal.
I don't think most of us need another complete life overhaul.
We probably don't need another complicated routine either.
We need things that still work when we're tired, busy, distracted, travelling, having a bad week or simply cannot be bothered.
So forget becoming a new person on Monday.
Pick one tiny thing that would make your actual everyday life a little better.
Make it easy.
Do it today.
And then do it again tomorrow.
That's it.
Until next time, here's to getting 1% better, one day at a time.
H x
Comments
Post a Comment