The Science of Self-Help

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Day 87, Walking, Burpee Habit, and TinyHabits

Day 87 Record Keeping SRHI = 68
Day 55 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 73
Day 15 Walking = Total Implosion!
Day 101 Eating SRHI = 61
Day 1 Burpee SRHI = 12
Good night sleep, great wakeup.

My walking habit has totally imploded. And it makes sense - as I said in my last post, I neglected to have a good implementation intention and it was way too much.

I’ve decided to scrap it for something that’s easier and able to be done anywhere. I’m thinking this because I want the ability to do exercise anywhere in the world since I travel so much. I’m also going around Brazil and Argentina for 3 weeks during the up coming World Cup, so walking for an hour everyday would’ve been imploded anyway. 

Not that I’m opposed to it at a later point. But I feel burpees are a good, whole body habit that would be great for me. Fogg states to implement them at a certain time, so here’s my protocol:

After I  finish blogging on tumblr, I will do 2 burpees.

Yesterday I was trying to figure out what Fogg’s protocol was for increasing the load of the habit. At what point do you push yourself from one tooth, 2 burpees, 2 pushups, to a real set that will actually give you a result. In his TedX speech he put up a slide that said “plant a tiny seed in the right spot and it will grow without coaxing”

My assumption is that when the load is so low, you’ll want to spontaneously increase it on your won. He himself stated that his original habit of doing 2 pushups increased so that now he’s doing around 70 a day.

I want to join the next group TinyHabits project - it believe it starts next week. In it you choose three habits to begin and get coached on them for 5 days. My previous concern was that doing more than one habit leads to the collapse of them all. But if you lower the daily load, perhaps you can do more than one. I’ve decided to go ahead and try it and see where it leads. My habits will be burpees, backbends, and another one I haven’t quite decided on. 

In my rudimentary ideas of a habit formation equation, I’m thinking that Willpower over Time = Endurance. If the Willpower of an action is decreased, and Time stays the same, then presumably the Endurance needed for a habit will decrease as well, thereby cementing it easier into a habit. I’m curious if such TinyHabits react with respect to my Quarter Mark Theory - will they even enter a danger zone? Does habit formation occur quicker?

EDIT** Damn! I just missed the signup which closed on Friday. The reason I want to do this is because getting a certification requires you to do one basic session.