Keeping Habits Alive When Life Gets in the Way

Today, I want to talk about disruptions. Disruptions, by definition, are unpredictable events that jolt us out of a routine or habit. Disruptions are one of the most common pitfalls when it comes to my patients establishing healthy routines.  You do all the planning —but then something happens— and it all goes out the window.

My wife and I have an alternating arrangement for morning workouts. One of us has 30-45 minutes to workout without distraction while the other handles the morning mayhem with the kids. Today was my day to work out. 

While putting on my shoes, I happened to glance out the window into our backyard and noticed a white trash bag and a pile of trash scattered next to a tree.  If you live in Asheville, you already know what comes next: a bear had gotten into our trashcan.

For the next 15 minutes, I was picking up trash while swatting away flies and repeatedly looking over my shoulder to make sure the bear wasn’t coming back for seconds. This was definitely not the workout I had in mind. 

Once I was done, I had a decision: do I throw in the towel and call the morning a wash? Or do I start my workout with only 15 minutes left? If I have to be honest, I have probably chosen option 1 more often than I’d care to admit; but this morning I went with option 2. I opened up my workout app (Hevy, free version, no affiliation, great app) and did what I could in 15 minutes.  And after I was done, I still had this feeling of accomplishment.

Disruptions and Habits

Maybe your disruption isn’t a bear but rather a sick child or an unexpected work call. Maybe you had planned a healthy meal, but you failed to realize that the vegetables spoiled overnight. Disruptions come in many different forms and are the most common reasons that habits fail.  But it doesn’t have to be that way. 

I think a lot about habits as part of my work — habits are what make or break our health. The most important thing with habits is consistency. A consistent effort will allow a habit to flourish whereas inconsistent effort will kill a habit quicker than you realize. Behavioral health scientists have shown that this desire for consistency is hardwired into our biology simply because it is comforting and predictable. Habits are like the easy button for our brains, allowing it to not have to think as much. 

For healthy habits to solidify, they just need to be consistent. Imperfect + consistent will always beat out inconsistent + perfect. My truncated workout on that day was not optimal for strength gains and was not overly challenging. But it was something. And it kept my habit alive. And that’s all that matters.

Practical Tips for Keeping Habits Alive

• Anchor your habit to a ‘why’ — aligning the habit closely to your personal ethics or morals gives it ‘stickiness.’
• Think of habits like a dial, not a switch — dial down the intensity or the time it takes rather than thinking of your habits as either all on or all off.
• Anchor habits to a cue: perform habits at the same time or place, reducing the mental load.
• Consistency > Perfection
• Plan for disruptions. 

I should probably bear-proof my trashcan. Maybe we can also bear-proof our habits, not by trying to avoid the distraction but by having a plan on how to respond with they come.