Rowing Habit Thus Far

Rowing achieved a 71 on the SRHI on day 22. This is all the data I have so far. If it continues to be locked in in this manner, rowing will be the fastest habit I’ve ever developed.

This means either:

1) My ability to form a habit is changing

2) The proper execution (excellent implementation intention, TinyHabit formation, and mental contrasting) was so good it sped the habit up

3) This habit piggy backed on my previous bodyweight exercise habit

4) It’s not really a habit yet.

We’ll just have to wait and see. But it may just be a counter to the impression I got from Lally’s experiment on disproving the 21 day myth of habit formation, where it was suggested that physical activities are some of the hardest habits (in terms of time) to form.

The Quarter Way Blues

Over the last few days I’ve experienced a drain of energy. 4 days ago I wrote my 750 words, but didn’t do my kettle bell/stretch routine. And the last three days it’s felt like I needed to expend more effort to do my exercises.

There are many explanations for this. I’m approaching the end of a year of intense travel and I’m about to go home - every time I’ve approached this time in the past I’ve felt my discipline go way down. I’ve also been extending my workouts so they are more draining - I’ve been incorporating a back bend progression and bodyweight exercises like squat thrusts, mountain climbers, and crab toe touches (I’ll describe these some more in another post) in order to have them primed for times I can’t bring my kettle bells.

But it is interesting that this dip in will is happening on day 50, roughly a quarter of the way through my projected habituation cycle for exercising.  And it’s not just will - it’s also my mood, with more frequent bouts of sadness, depression, and frustration.

And if I recall other times when I’ve attempted 90 day transformations I had the same set of emotions - it’s understandable that this would happen after the beginning where everything is new and spirits are up, and after the time when you see a lot of improvement. You’re left just chugging along with no hope, and you start wondering why you’re even doing it. 

This is actually a great thing because it confirms, at least emotionally, my theory that ¼ of the way into a habit is the hardest part. It’s where I should start using gamification to counter this low point.

Is this confirmed by the SRHI index? I’m not sure. I took it a week ago, and 750 words = 74 while exercising = 43. These stayed roughly the same when I took it today (750=73, exercising = 43). Looking at the exercising habit, I was quite surprised - I would’ve sworn that it would be lower - I don’t know if this signifies that this period is a plateau, or if this is just a regular progression. It does signify that I need to make more regular records of my SHRI score. I believe Lally stated in some interview that her problem in her habit formation experiment was that participants weren’t recording their SRHI regularly - perhaps I need to make self reporting a habit in itself!

Willpower Over Time Theory

I have another theory that I’ve been turning over in my head for a while.

The hardest thing about a habit isn’t the willpower needed for an individual task. Flossing is an easy task that pretty much stays easy. It’s the STREAK - it’s doing it over time that becomes a drag. 

My theory is that Willpower is one aspect of the equation, but it’s Willpower over time that’s the real issue for any given habit. Call it persistence, endurance, doggedness, or tenaciousness - but it’s what caused me to make 750 words a habit despite having periodic setbacks.

I feel it reacts differently than Willpower - after about 2 months of working out, it’s not as though working out becomes difficult in that instance - it just becomes exhausting when it comes to the streak.

The reserve that fuels the act of extending the activity over time gets depleted, while the actual activity remains the same.

Furthermore, in my theory, as I have eluded to before, after a quarter of the way into a habit, Endurance becomes heavily depleted, while for Lally, it just becomes more and more easy.

And gamified programs, (although I’m sure they help lower the threshold with regards to Willpower) through their emphasis on badges over time and accumulating streaks, help the most with regards to Endurance depletion - Or whatever we should  call it.

There is a researcher - Dr. Angela Duckworth - who recently won the MacArthur Research Grant, who may be doing research into whatever this is. I’ll get into that in the next post.

Since Last Time....Kettlebell Status Update

I pegged the kettle bell exercise habit at 250 days to habituation - I estimated this based on Philippa Lally’s paper on how many days different habits take to reach automaticity. The paper estimated that it would take 250 days to form a habit of doing sit-ups in the morning. 

So for my theory, at the halfway point, 125 days, things would start to get easier. Days 62 - 125 would mark the most difficult time for the process.

So far I’ve had multiple problems. I went on several trips and moved to a different city. I started developing back problems because of it - I’ve always had a sensitive back, but it’s caused me to stop doing kettle bells for swaths of time. Instead I replaced it with a series of back stretches that worked in the past. 

Now it’s going well. I’ve bookended it immediately after my 750 words and I’ve incorporated the stretch routine as part of the process. I keep trying to remind myself that it’s not about the kettle bells, it’s about bracketing a spot for physical exercise - and that’s the thing I’m trying to habituate.

The other thing that’s different about this from 750 words is that I am not using gamification yet - my theory is that gamification can be used to lower the threshold of discipline needed for a habit - which would work best during the ¼-½ way mark. When I hit that point, I’ll probably be using Fitocracy.

This is day 35. Consistency has been sketchy, and I haven’t even gotten to the hardest part, at least according to my theory. AND, I’m going on another trip today!

A New Plan for Habit Progressions Part 3 - A New Hope

What I’ve done for the last 38 days is work solely on 750words.

My theory is that after the a rough patch and after the midpoint, things start their inevitable slide towards automaticity - this is a theory that runs counter to Lally’s research, and is something I’ll discuss later.

My new plan was to work solely on 750 words until after the midpoint, and then start a new habit, the theory being that after the midpoint the will needed to sustain a task becomes less and less. Two tasks overlap, but in the best way possible. The starting task is easy for a bit, and the previous task is approaching automaticity and taking less willpower.

I feel the change in 750 words now. I’ve streamlined the process using the book Self-Discipline in 10 Days and pegged it to a specific time i.e. as soon as I get up in the morning. I’ve taken the Automaticity Index questionnaire and it seems to corroborate my feelings - it is on it’s way to becoming a habit.

I chose working out as my next habit - specifically doing some form of kettlebell workout right after I finish my 750 words - and I started Day 1 this morning. This will be a long one - I’ve pegged it at a 125 day midpoint with an estimated 250 days before it becomes a habit. I’ll be streamlining the process like 750 words, and I’ll be taking notes on how much willpower it takes, it’s automaticity by taking the questionnaire, and how it interacts with my previous habit in the making. I’ll also be using fitocracy and a Google docs spreadsheet to keep track of it.

A New Plan for Habit Progressions Part 1

So in light of feeling the brunt of all these attempts at habit formation, I’ve stepped back and tried to look at a better plan based on all the stuff I’ve been reading.

So here’s my theoretical framework: If self discipline is one deplete-able resource, and if automaticity is when an action approaches an asymptote of 0 willpower, then the best way is to have a slowly unfolding progression of new actions taking over as the first action slides towards that asymptote.

For example, if drinking a glass of water before breakfast takes 18 days to form into a habit, then I’d want to start another habit at some point past the mid point where the slide to full automaticity is underway.

I’m assuming, perhaps erroneously, that tasks take a certain amount of willpower on day 1, and start getting harder as the “streak” of sustaining the habit continues as days go by. This certainly is true for my own personal attempts. Going to the gym is easy on day 1 or 2, but it gets more and more difficult to continue the streak of days (obviously there are some random days where it’s more or less difficult).

Given the above, and given that different tasks take different amounts of times to reach automaticity, then it makes sense to start Habit 1 until the midpoint of automaticity, then start Habit 2 until it reaches ITS UNIQUE midpoint, etc. This way the process of automaticity itself shoulders the brunt of sustained will - rather than how I’ve been doing it now - which is simply adding tasks 1 week later regardless of their difficulty or willpower expenditure.

So now the question is, how do you establish midpoints? I do not want to test each task, so what I’ll do is ball park it using Lally’s experiment - I’m assuming that tasks that take the least willpower will take the quickest to form into habits and the ones that take more will take longer.

So with Lally’s data, I can estimate that easier tasks will take 18 days, middle of the range will take 66 days, and the most difficult will take 250 days - I’ll divide each to peg the midpoint, and estimate the variations between tasks that I’ve already labeled as Easy, Medium, and Difficult.

Thoughts on Interludes and Automaticity

“Interludes” is what I’m calling those points where your interrupted - the inevitable trip, friend coming into town, or event that disrupts your careful practices.

My mom and I were talking about this whole project, and one thing that I’ll have to confront is how to deal with these moments. Obvious one solution is to keep carrying on. But in some cases this is genuinely not possible due to time restraints.

I’m curious if another solution would be a partial but time constrained execution of a skill.

For example, if your goal is to write 750 words a day, would writing 20 words work? For working out, would doing a few air squats that take 5 minutes work as a placeholder for the full execution of the task?

According to Lally’s experiment, missing a day or two here and there didn’t seem to adversely affect the approach of aromaticity. But would a half execution be better?

Notes on Experimentation

Lally’s experiments on self-discipline got me thinking about experiments I could possibly perform on the subject. Here are a few thoughts:

1. If there is an automaticity index, is there a happiness or willpower index? If not, is it possible to com up with them?

2. Does mood affect willpower? It seems like it does given my experience with the effect of humorous videos on ego-depletion.

3. According to Lally’s study, different actions take different amounts of time to develop into habits - Do actions that take less willpower to develop automaticity take an equal amount of time to lose automaticity? Or Do they take more time?

4. What other actions rejuvenate willpower?

5. Does relaxation affect willpower?

6. What is an optimal willpower workout?

7. How many actions are optimal for habit formation? Given 6 actions that have a similar “will power” and automaticity value, how many actions are “stackable” - what is the likelyhood that 2 vs 6 actions will achieve full automaticity.

8. Is there an automaticity constant that can be derived from specific actions? If automaticity can be mapped, and if will can be mapped, then shouldn’t there be a value derived for willpower and automaticity for a given action?

9. Do actions that rejuvenate ego-depletion have the same affect or do they diminish? Can I exert willpower, then rejuvenate willpower, and repeat ad infinitum? Or does each rejuvenation yield fewer and fewer “willpower points?

These are all rather vague notions, but I think it’s important to note them so that they can be examined in detail later.

Phillippa Lally and the Number of Days to Form a Habit

Common consensus seems to suggest that it either takes 21 days or 30 days to form a habit.

Based on my own observations, this is clearly not true - and Philippa Lally’s study in the European Journal of Social Psychology seems to suggest otherwise.

The study analyzes a group, has them perform various tasks, and asks them at what level of of automaticity they are at with these tasks every day.

The study suggests that some tasks take less time and some tasks more time before they are considered a habit, but the average is 66 days.

This brings up a number of interesting points:

1. Perhaps I should use an index like she did in order to assess my level of habituation for any given task.

2. Perhaps programs like Level Me Up, which use a number of hours to determine mastery, are not as good as a program that functions by checking out a daily practice of a skill. I’ve already begun to have doubts about Level Me Up - this might be it’s death knell.

3. What are the tasks that are easier and take longer to form into habits? I’m assuming this has to do with those that take more willpower. If habituation can be indexed by a questionnaire, perhaps I could come up with a willpower index in order to attempt to find some sort of correlation between willpower expenditure and “automaticity” - what the studies are using as the technical term for the progression of habit formation.

This is some really exciting stuff, because it’s the first real testing as to the mechanics of habit formation in scientific conditions.