The Magic of Habits

I admit it; I'm a little obsessed with habits.

Teaching teens how to build good habits is foundational to my work as a coach, and it's a big part of my Pathway to Independence course. 

Why am I so obsessed with habits? Two reasons, really: 

1. Without a plan, we will never achieve our goals. This sounds obvious, but a lot teens--a lot adults, too!--struggle with this part. Habits are our plan, our system for achieving our goals.

And,

2. We can't really on our internal motivation or our memory every day to get important tasks done. This is especially true for kids with various executive functioning weaknesses, like in working memory, focus, or goal-directed persistence. The beauty of habits, then, is that they automatize important tasks--we do them almost without thinking, because they are so ingrained. Think about brushing your teeth: do you have to pump yourself up to get motivated to do that at least twice a day? Probably not, right? Do you have to put post-it notes or reminders in your phone, reminding you to do it? For most of us, no. It's just what we do every morning and every night. That is the power of habits.

In my work with preteens and teenagers, I usually suggest, when we're trying to build a new habit, that they start small. There are important, research-base reasons for that:

1. Small habits make a difference over time. Reading two pages a day of a book might seem like a meaningless amount, but after a year? That's like 3 or 4 books!

2. Starting up a big habit--like doing two hours of homework every night, or working out five times a week--can feel really overwhelming. Your teen will probably do just about anything to get out of a habit that feels huge, daunting or scary for them. But almost anyone can commit to a tiny habit, like walking around the block every day, or studying for 20 minutes a day. 

3. And, related to #3, once we successfully establish a tiny habit, it's much easier to build on top of that existing habit than it is to create a brand new, big habit. Going from reading two pages a day to 5 is a much more manageable leap, psychologically, than 0 to 5.

And finally,

4. Getting started is usually motivation enough to get us to continue on. When I first started working out, before it became a habit, I'd tell myself, "Ugh, I'm just going to do ten minutes of this 30 minute workout." But most of the time, once I started the workout, that was all the motivation I needed to keep going. 

Getting our teens started can be the hardest part of building habits, so starting small can be the crucial entry point they need to be successful. 

And guess what? This works for adults, too!