This essay was originally published on August 28, 2018 on LinkedIn.
Over the past year, I’ve been running an experiment on myself.
As it most often does, it all started on a mountain. In August 2017, I accidentally found myself trekking 17 miles on and off the Appalachian Trail on an impromptu day hike. After conquering Turk Mountain with a grand, echoing yell, I was descending while captivated by a podcast about a guy who would try on a new habit for 30 days. Matt Cutts, a former Google engineer, was explaining how:
“The idea is actually pretty simple. Think about something you’ve always wanted to add to your life and try it for the next 30 days. It turns out 30 days is just about the right amount of time to add a new habit or subtract a habit from your life.”
That August, I was just about to embark on my graduate school journey on top of full-time work, so the thought of establishing positive habits in such a time-crunched era tickled my senses. I was intrigued, and, haphazardly running down the trail, decided that I would give a month of habits a try.
I’d thought, why not? Why not try to imbue consistency for 30 days while making a healthy change? If this stranger could do it, why couldn’t I?
Well, that one month turned into two, then six, then a full 12 months flew by. A whole year of daily habits, partitioned into monthly flavors. Now, a year older and a year wiser (arguably), I want to share my analysis and reflections on those monthly habits. Here are my top 12 takeaways.
But First, Some Background
You may be wondering: What was the nature of those monthly habits?
At the beginning of each month, I would spend several minutes brainstorming and writing down one to five discrete habits to try. On average, I tried on 2.8 habit hats (the mean), and most frequently wore three habit hats per month (the mode).
Because numbers can be storytellers, too, I’ll include some telling percentages.
The Takeaways
1.First, a confession. While my year ran from August 2017 to July 2018, in looking through my journal notes, I was surprised to find that I never made habits for the month of December. What?! I can offer a few excuses like that it was the end of the semester, and maybe I had wanted to give myself a break from diligent habiting for the holidays, but I wish I had stuck with December. While subsequent analyses will only reflect 11 months, the good news is that there are plenty of more months to habitize me, Capt’n!
2. The majority of my months (72%) included eliminating something, often preceded with the word “no.” Usually those items were either food or phone, such as “no eating after 10 p.m.,” or “no checking phone before bed.” In a scary admission to myself (and the world), these reflect my personal struggles with food and technology, in that I tend to overuse both. Those habits, then, were a means to try to control my intake.
3. To further delve deeper, all months but one (91%) included something about food. From the restrictions outlined in #2, to “plate your snacks,” to “put utensils down for a few minutes in the middle of a meal” to “do intermittent fasting from 12-8 p.m.,” it was curious to see how my habits reflected the aspect of my life that I most wanted to change. Thinking about what makes us uncomfortable and then attempting to rectify it may unveil to us what is most important.
4. Through analyzing types of habits, I grouped my individual ones into three main categories: physical, social, and self-love. Physical habits comprised 36% of my goals (appeared in four different months), and were mainly to establish consistency in push-ups and pull-ups on top of my daily workouts. I’d heard that it is possible to get noticeable shoulder/chest definition from 30 consistent days of push-ups, and anecdotally it did work! While I did not think to take before/after pictures, I saw and felt a change. Additionally, I introduced daily morning stretching one month, and found that it does aid in providing a brief cocoon of calm before the cacophony of the day.
5. I repeated the same social habit for two non-subsequent months within the course of the year, and that was to talk to one new person each day. My friend Justin Graves inspired me to do this because of his own decade-long practice, and ultimately I found myself feeling more connected to humanity. Normally I’m not terribly shy with strangers if we’re in a more intimate setting, but this exercise forced me to deliberately take the extra step and inquire about that librarian’s day, or spend additional time thanking our custodial staff at work. Even though these interactions were brief, both parties parted with smiles on our faces.
6. As a follow-up to #5, strangers and depth of connection are important, so this lesson deserved its own bullet. Nightly, I’d write down my “new person” with whom I’d struck up a conversation, and even two months later, I still remember that “woman in the elevator” or the “cookies dude at Trader Joe’s”! Another example was a lady I’d passed on my way from the gym who looked vaguely familiar, so I took a chance and piped up–“Hey, didn’t you go to [our mutual high school]?” She did, and we started a conversation where I learned she was in town for medical school, and knew several mutual friends. Small world! I learned it’s really not hard to say the initial “hello,” and affirmed once more that others are looking for that human connection, too.
7. Self-love habits showed up in about a third of my months, with ideas like “take five deep breaths; intentionally revel in a moment of pause; sleep at least eight hours per night; write down something I love about myself; and list what I’m grateful for.” Interestingly, while these intentions were excellent, follow-through was less than stellar. I’d forget to track my sleep (while being painfully aware of my four-hour nights), or forget to breathe deeply daily, particularly as the month went on. Perhaps the day had escaped me by the nighttime when I’d review my habits, or the habits were not salient enough to recall amidst all the freneticism of the day. In this light bulb moment, it amazes me of the difference between being aware that I need to self-love, and the difficulty of carrying it out. How have you included this in your daily routine?
8. There was one self-love habit that did stick, however. It even compounded and showed up on every single monthly habit since its inception in January 2018–without me even having to write it down! That habit was jotting down three or more things I was grateful for that day. Growing research positively links gratitude with life well-being and satisfaction, and anecdotally, I found the activity to pull me out of any negative thoughts. For example, between work, school, several side hustles, and friends, I often get lost in the weeds of overwhelm that sometimes feels like an enveloping darkness (yikes).
Writing down: “1. Sunshine without humidity, and strong legs to carry me far [in running]; 2. Good beer and good vibes at Miller’s [a local bar]; and 3. “[name of a close friend or S/O]” was such a powerful reminder that the small things really matter–and that they are instrumental in acknowledging the succulence of each day.
9. Here’s another confession: Some months, I felt such tremendous relief after the month was over of having to continually give certain habits a try. That is, some habits, like intermittent fasting or even 30 pull/push-ups were a drag to upkeep and I was actually glad to stop them. Perhaps this speaks to (my personal) level of difficulty in being consistent with those habits. By themselves, a few days of those exercises or having a restricted eating window are not that hard to execute; in fact, it’s quite a fun challenge. However, spreading them to 30 consecutive days is where it gets tricky, and I’ll be honest that I did not complete the full month of intermittent fasting. This lead me to learn another lesson, below.
10. “Failure” is okay! It is okay to not complete a whole strict month of habits, because the whole point of this experiment was to learn about myself within this year, not check off more boxes. Giving myself the permission to fail was fundamental, because it allowed me to not stress myself out on top of everything else going on. Interestingly, I did feel “unsuccessful” if I didn’t, for example, avoid sweets for a whole month. It was almost a disappointment in myself that–“Katya, it was only 30 days; you could’ve done it!!” Maybe this is an even greater takeaway: the lesson is not in the habits themselves, but in the journey and reactions to trying.
11. When I found the habits that made me feel the best (like not eating past 10 p.m., stretching, decreasing phone time), I wonder what keeps me from enacting those habits now. Why do I not do a daily morning stretch now? Why am I more reliant on my phone than ever? This is where the gem lies: The greater the difficulty of maintaining the habit, the more important it can be to oneself, and the higher the potential payoff. Recognizing this difficulty can be a first step in deliberately incorporating a meaningful change. In the future, it may be helpful to focus on solely one habit per 30 days, instead of coupling several easy and hard habits together. By focusing on a singular habit, one may channel more of their energy in following through.
12. Finally, a lesson in personal power. When I first heard of “that guy from Google” trying out these monthly habits, I was admittedly both intrigued by the possibility and also questioned its feasibility for myself. Surely, I’d thought, since he worked at Google, he must be some guru in personal and professional achievement. While that may absolutely be the case (Matt, if you’re reading this, I thank you for the inspiration that changed my year!), he is also human. And so am I. And so are you. Habits aside, this year has taught me that a tiny seed of a goal can flourish into a year’s worth of experimentation, betterment, and learning–and ultimately proved to myself that I can do it. And so can you.
From a
Read on about extending these habits to building a community group of Habit Hackers!