Habits and self-discipline – just HOW??

[quitethelittlekoala]

if anyone’s had success in forming/keeping new habits, please tell me how as I am sick of trying to improve myself and constantly letting myself down.

There are many things I want to do – for example, eat less sugar, increase upper body strength, improve concentration – but whenever I set myself goals, even tiny one,s I fail miserably – always, over and over again to the point where it's getting to be a joke.

I try to keep the goals realistic, and specific, and start small, but it makes no difference. For example, I know that cutting out sugar 100% is totally unrealistic, all I want is not to buy massive choc bars when I’m alone, but I can’t even manage that. I just override myself, go and buy stuff anyway, sit and eat it in the car. I don’t know what my thought processes are at the time – a bit ‘fuck you, who are you to say I can’t have this’ at myself. Complete self-sabotage, I know.

I’ve read Atomic Habits, I know the psychology of it all, I know about things like habit-stacking and not missing more than once, for example – I just don’t do it. And it’s getting worse – at the start of August I set myself the goal of doing two press-ups a day – pretty modest fucking goal! – and on day 3, I deliberately didn’t do it. It was a conscious thing.

There’s one single thing I’ve had success with and I've no idea how – Duolingo. I’m over 300 days doing basic Spanish now and I KNOW I won’t stop till I get to one year. It’s just non-negotiable in my mind. Though I'm worried about what will happen after 365 days... But I try and stack other habits around it – eg I tell myself to do a couple of press-ups right before doing my Spanish – and I just DON’T! I feel I don’t have enough time! It’s soul-destroying. Please give me your tips on how to make little gradual changes for overall improvement and how you hold yourself accountable!!

Journalling as well, that's another one. I pick up my diary every morning, bring it to the table when I'm having breakfast, all I want to do is write a quick summary of the previous day as I find it really useful to look back on... and then I just don't... 😫

Watching with interest as I'm currently struggling with lack of motivation. I don't have any helpful tips I'm afraid :-(.

Personally I experience resistance/self-sabotage with self-improvement when there isn't enough pleasure/fun in other areas of my life. It's like my part of myself just goes nope, that's asking too much, eff off with your self improvement! Could that be the case for you?

I think it may be time to realise you don’t NEED these habits your desperately trying to install in order to be worthy or a fulfilling life. Think back to time when you felt fulfilled, where you trying to in still habits or where you just happy? I really believe social media and self help books make us feel like failures when really we were fine before them and we can be fine without them. You obviously enjoy learning Spanish that’s why you’ve kept it up. You don’t enjoy not eating chocolate or doing press ups. As the saying goes - find what you love doing and you won’t have to make an effort to do it!

Do you enjoy doing press-ups though? I suspect you really dislike them and that’s why you are actively avoiding them. I suspect doing them is making you feel like a failure which is why you are avoiding them. It’s a negative spiral.

Look for alternative activities that give the same end result. So for example get some 5kg weight and do a 30 second upper body routine right after you brush your teeth. Once you have the upper body strength then you might enjoy a couple of press-ups because it will give you a sense of achievement. That then sets up a positive spiral.

And the sugar/chocolate thing … it’s not possible to build a negative habit - a habit of not doing something. But I think you know that. All you can do is build positive habits that push the bad habits it’s out. Eg eat fruit.

Thanks user, I literally have done this – I have the 5kg weights and used them before brushing my teeth! For a bit... then stopped. It's just all so tiring to try and pull myself out of this funk.

There’s another school of thought that says a great leap can be easier than small steps- it depends on the individual. I’m rubbish at cutting down on things because that requires a decision every time. Eg cutting down on refined sugar requires you to decide every time you have the option of having some whether this is going to be an occasion on which you say yes or say no. In contrast, just cutting sugar out 100% only requires one decision- you decide and then you do it. You don’t have to keep deciding every time you’re offered a biscuit because the decision has already been made.

Given what you say about Duolingo, I wonder whether you might find this easier as well. Worth a try?

Following with interest because the way you describe this reminds me of a former partner's apparent inability to make the simplest change and I'd genuinely like to understand how this could possibly look from the inside. From the outside, when it was "please don't keep leaving that there it's in the way there, put it away instead" etc. it was pretty darned frustrating.

I doubt that the root problem is, as pps suggest, that you're trying to instill habits you don't want - I'm guessing your own analysis that it's self-sabotage is more on the ball.

When I want to instill a new habit, it seems to me that there are three key elements: know precisely what I want to change and why; think through practicalities and obstacles; and perhaps the one you may be missing, give myself a pat on the back and a warm feeling - a dopamine hit? - every time I successfully do it, enjoying a sense of efficacy. Positive habits, like pressups, are lot easier than negative ones, like not eating chocolate, of course, because once you've done them you don't have to think about them till next time. But you know all that in theory...

What is it that keeps you doing Duolingo? There are apps that gamify habit formation a bit similarly, have you tried using one?

Listen to Can I Change? On BBC sounds. I've changed a few things because of it. I'm still the same person who doesn't care if the washing up piles up, the difference is that I just wash it now.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m001fw72

Just wondering if there is any mileage in substituting fruit for refined sugar? Say if you tried to get your 30g of fibre a day, in the evening you could progress to doing this by having fruit instead of chocolate?

Oo I can relate to this so much OP. I think it's because I'm a born rebel. I grew up with a very strict mother and absolutely love breaking the rules! It's frustrating when you try to impose rules on yourself and your natural fuck you rules attitude comes out.

I've started to give myself Fridays for rule breaking. I can smoke/drink/eat takeaways/chocolate whatever it is that I want I can have on a friday. I've only just started this so I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up, but I think it will be easier than constantly trying to live better.

@CattyCattle I like that idea – might give that a go! Though maybe I'll start with two days where I can do anything I want...

And thanks for the BBC Sounds link too, @megletthesecond – I'm going to listen to that right now (literally – off out for a walk to do so!).

Just some of these replies are making me feel a bit more optimistic – thank you all so much 💐

@t1479 you know what I think keeps me doing Duolingo? The tiny moment when your streak number changes from (today for me) 310 to 311. The little visual "ding" . It's nuts, and sounds oversimplistic, but that's the dopamine giver! Do you happen to have the names of any of these apps that 'gamify' new habits, as you say?

Well, for starters, journalling is dumb and I hate it, so it sounds like a tiny part of your brain agrees with me.

What strikes me is that doing something has worked for you, where trying to stop something hasn't. Duolingo must have forced something out of your routine.

So maybe try to do something every day that will force craving chocolate out of your routine. Having a specific snack every day (don't worry about avoiding sugar for now). I had a "nutrition snack" every day - cabbage and broccoli, just that, seasoned, as if it were a pill. I didn't get any joy out of it, but my gut biome thanked me, and I guess it helped push bad habits out.

I think @BLT24 is spot on!

You need to figure out why you are striving for these goals. What are you unhappy about (if anything)?

I don't remember what the one was that I used for a bit (before deciding I didn't need the gamification) but searching in the app store for habit finds many. I think the one I see called Avocado Habit looks most like what I'm thinking of - growing your "avocado" for another day might give you the same kind of ding! (This is on android, I don't have an apple device so don't know if there's a version for that but I'm sure there'll be similar things.)

Noooo @thecatsthecats , I looove journalling! I love being able to look back two years ago today and seeing "DS went to X's birthday party, rest of us watched X film and ate Y". That's all I want to record, nothing in-depth or emotional. I hate looking back at a 2019 diary, for example, and seeing all these blank pages because I failed to write even a sentence...

Thanks for the snack advice too tho :-)

Right, I said I was going out for a walk, I really am now – thank you all, will check back later.

Following cos I'm exactly the same.

There is an app called fabulous which is a habit tracker. I didn't like it because the first thing you have to do is drink water every day. That doesn't make me happy. Drinking coffee in the morning makes me happy. I do drink water throughout the day but I like my morning coffee.

I do agree with what a previous poster said about there being something in all the self improvement shite that makes you think that there is something wrong with you. The wellness industry is a massive scam imo. Buut if I don't eat well, drink water and be active my MH goes completely downhill and I'll spend all my free time always doing things I want to do in the moment but things that don't make me feel good long term and will have a detrimental impact on my health.

For exercise and fitness what works for me is accountability. So I have to book and pay for a series of classes and my husband knows I've done it. I have gotten really successful recently with a new class where I met a fellow beginner and we buddied up, now we sync our classes each week. As a people pleaser I cannot let her down. Just doing exercise whenever myself doesn't work. Also agree on the all or nothing approach so that the decision making is taken out of it.

You have to be in the right mindset and really want to do something. Changing takes effort which is why many of us fail at the first hurdle.

Noooo @thecatsthecats , I looove journalling!

But you clearly don't love it if you can't make yourself stick to it. I too used to be constantly trying to implement new habits, I read all the productivity and self-improvement books etc. Then I went back to working full time and realised that when I'm actually properly busy, doing something productive, paid and stimulating, I don't actually feel the need to 'improve' myself or implement habits. And if there's something I need to do, like lose a bit of weight or do more exercise, I either manage to do it or I don't. I don't give it too much headspace.

The one thing I did stick to for years was using a bullet journal. Not as a written diary with descriptions of my day or feelings or whatever, but purely as an organisational tool. I stuck to that because it was genuinely useful.

I'm a pretty strong believer in self-fulfilling prophecies - if you see yourself as something then that's what you'll be/do. And you also need to have a clear end benefit to what you do.

I see myself as fairly fit and energetic, so I exercise which I really hate, and that makes me fit and energetic.

I see myself as an enviably organised person, capable and bright, and on top of my share of the household load. (🤮 I know). So I plan out each week in a journal - who is where when, meal plan etc.

If you see yourself as someone who "always fails" and "is crap at motivation" then you'll set yourself a series of targets and then fail at them to prove your point.

So I would say you need to find goals that are meaningful and tangible, and you need to believe that the end result is you - you clearly wanted to learn Spanish and believed you were someone capable of speaking Spanish so you did it, and I am in awe of that.

What's the end benefit of "being more organised"? Maybe think instead "I plan for food for the week so I have more money, time and less food-related stress every day".

What's the end benefit of eating less sugar? Two press-ups a day? Make it meaningful to you, and with a tangible outcome.

And seriously, just one or two at a time!

Try something like Habitica