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5 Tips to Build Micro Habits That Stick
If you’ve ever set a big goal for yourself only to lose momentum a few weeks later, you’re not alone. According to research cited by Forbes, approximately 92% of people fail to achieve their New Year’s goals. While setting ambitious goals can be motivating, the reality of changing our behavior can be overwhelming. Thus, enter the beauty of the micro habit. Micro habits are doable, simple actions you can easily implement into your daily routine. Micro habits help us create systems that make positive behavior easier to maintain.
To help you start building habits that last, we’ve compiled five tips for creating effective micro habits:
1. Start smaller than you think: The key to building a micro habit is making it so small that it feels almost impossible to skip. Want to be more organized at work? Do a five-minute review of your priorities at the start of each day. Small, repetitive actions help the habit become automatic over time. If you try to make a big change suddenly, you may quickly become overwhelmed and lose your momentum before the habit has a chance to stick.
2. Attach your desired habit to an existing routine: One of the easiest ways to build a new habit is to connect it to something you already do frequently. This strategy, sometimes called “habit stacking,” uses an existing routine as a trigger for your new behavior. For example, you might use your weekly team meeting as a reminder to share updates or recognize someone’s contributions if your desired behavior is getting better with communication.
3. Focus on consistency over perfection: Building a new habit means prioritizing how consistently you stick to it, rather than whether you’re achieving perfection. The entire principle of micro habit building is to take small steps to create a big change, so do not create pressure on yourself by thinking you have to keep a perfect routine.
4. Make your environment work for you: Our surroundings play a major role in shaping our behaviors. If you want to make a habit easier to maintain, design your environment to support the behavior you’re trying to build. For example, say your goal is to become more organized at work, and the micro habit you’re building is using the Rule of 3 to identify your top priorities each day. You might arrive at work a few minutes early or find a quiet space before your day begins to create an environment that reduces distractions.
5. Celebrate the small wins: Don’t underestimate the power of recognizing your progress. Celebrating small victories reinforces the behavior and helps your brain associate the habit with a positive experience. Developing micro habits means creating momentum in your life, so recognize that each small action is taking you closer to the behaviors you are trying to establish.