Here is an experiment you can try in changing one small habit in your daily routine. The goal is to try it out successfully for one full week, then re-evaluate whether you would like to continue the habit change in the future.

Step 1: Choose one habit.

We all know the kinds of habits we want to change. They aren’t hard to think of. The problem is focusing in on one and putting in the effort to make it happen.

Concentrating all your energy on one habit is often better than trying to change too much at once. When we spread our efforts too thin, we burn out easily and nothing gets accomplished.

However, when we focus on one small but meaningful change, we are more likely to see it become a reality. Not to mention we build more momentum to make changes in the future.

If you can’t think of any small change to make, consider one of these common suggestions:

• Substitute every glass of soda with a glass of water.
• Wake up an hour early every morning.
• Sacrifice 15-30 minutes of TV each day and meditate instead.
• Read a chapter of a novel every night before bed.
• Do 10 push-ups every time you want to smoke a cigarette.
• Floss every morning.
• Write a blog/journal entry once a day.
• Make time in your schedule to jog a mile each day.
• Plan 2-4 social interactions throughout the week.

Remember to only choose one of these habits at a time. Also, try to choose something that is relevant to an area in your life that you want to improve.

Step 2: Stay committed.

Now that you have chosen your habit to practice for the week, the key is staying committed.

Because you are only making one simple change, try to be as disciplined as possible about it. If you slip up once, that’s fine, but try to not even let that happen. Remember, you are only trying to stay committed for one week, so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

Here are some suggestions to keep you motivated:

• Repeat an affirmation 10 times right when you wake up: “I will do X today.”
• Leave appropriate reminders around the house, such as a sticky note on your kitchen cabinet.
• Tell a couple supportive friends about your goal. Have them keep you accountable.
• Take 5 minutes and imagine yourself doing the habit. This kind of visualization can prepare you to do the action when it’s time.
• Notice the bigger picture. How can this habit benefit you in the long-term?
• Avoid excuses. It’s just one week, really.

Once the week is completed, take the time to reflect and ask yourself:

• Was this habit change worth it?
• How did it change my thoughts and emotions?
• How did it change my behavior?
• Did it improve the overall quality of my life?
• Is this a change I want to continue in the future?

If the answers to these questions are positive, then consider sustaining your new habit into the future. If not, scratch the new habit and try something different.

There are always adjustments to make in life. That doesn’t mean every new thing we try is going to be the best possible choice, but we should always consider room for improvement.

I hope this article has provided you with a simple and easy-to-use framework for trying new habits. A big part of self-improvement is experimentation and trial-and-error. This exercise encourages us to try new habits without feeling like they are set in stone.

An aspiring baseball player doesn’t think or feel like a baseball player the first time he steps up to the plate.

His body is not yet familiar with the mechanics. His stance is awkward. His swing is awkward. He doesn’t exactly understand all the rules of the game.

As a result, he doesn’t yet consider himself a “real” baseball player. And he certainly doesn’t yet look like a “real” baseball player to his friends and family. Chances are his going to make quite a few blunders throughout the course of his first few games. This phase of our self-improvement can be embarrassing and frustrating.

How to overcome the awkward phases of self-improvement.

• Acknowledge your discomfort.

A big part of emotional maturity is acknowledging how you feel, not just avoiding feelings because they are unpleasant. If you want to be serious about self-improvement, then you need to be honest with yourself. There’s a good chance you will suck at something when you first start out, so it should be expected that you will occasionally feel embarrassed, frustrated, or angry. Try your best to accept these feeling, and then move on.

• Understand the path to success.

It helps during our “awkward phase” to try to imagine the bigger picture of success. It’s often a windy road with many hardships and failures. At times it can feel like we are going backwards, but that is all a part of long-term self-improvement. Once we understand and prepare ourselves for a long-term commitment to our goals, we’ll find it easier to stay dedicated and focused, even when times are tough. Here is a nice illustration of what we think success looks like compared to how success often looks in the real world:


• Practice and experience.

There is no substitute for practice and experience. The more you expose yourself to something, the more familiar and natural it will become. Repetition is the key to building new neural pathways in your brain. And the more you condition yourself toward certain thoughts and behaviors, the easier it will be to re-activate those pathways in the future. Aspiring baseball players often go into a batting cage to get their swing right. The more time they spend there, the more they build the brain pathways and muscle memory associated with hitting a pitch. All habits have an underlying structure in our nervous system which can be built through practice and experience. (Related Article: Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity.)

• Ask yourself if this is what you really want.

Upon reflection you may find that your goals aren’t aligned with what you really want. Maybe you only played baseball because your friends wanted you to, but the truth is there are other interests you find more important. Maybe the “awkward phase” of your self-improvement is actually a sign that you are pursuing goals that aren’t congruent with your core values. It can be a tough call to make, but sometimes you need to abandon a particular goal because you later find out it’s not for you. However, if you ask yourself “Is this what I really want?” and the answering is a resounding yes, then you’ll know in your heart this is what you should pursue.

• Be open to a new version of yourself.

To make any kind of self-improvement you have to be open to a new version of yourself. If you believe your personality is static and unchanging, then you’ll stay stuck in old ways. However, if you believe you’re always growing, then your actions will reflect an attitude more open to personal development. Attitude is important – sometimes it can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. If every time you go up to bat you say to yourself, “I’ll never get a hit,” then you’re going to sabotage yourself from performing to the best of your ability. (Related Article: Self-Talk Can Improve Sports Performance.)

• Find a mentor or role model.

During rough phases of our self-improvement, it can be very beneficial to interact with a mentor or role model. Research has shown mentoring programs can be effective across a wide range of domains including behavioral, social, emotional, and academic. Having a mentor improves your motivation and accountability. It can also be an important source of insight if your mentor relates to your troubles in a meaningful way. (Related Article: How We Find Motivation in Other People’s Struggles.)

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And the truth is there is a lot of scientific evidence showing the physical and mental benefits of mindfulness and why we should aim to be more present in our everyday lives.

The purpose of this article isn’t to diminish the importance of mindfulness or “living in the moment,” but to remind you that it’s just one mode of awareness. At times, it is just as important that we “step outside of the moment,” and interpret our world from a broader viewpoint.

The benefits of reflecting on the past.

One benefit we don’t get from only living in the moment is reflecting on our past and learning from our mistakes.

If we never look backward at the scope of our life, the choices we’ve made, and where they have led us, then it’s incredibly difficult to identify what we’ve done right and what we’ve done wrong.

Research indicates that reflection is key to learning.

The benefits of planning for the future.

Living a happy, healthy, and successful life often requires adequate planning and foresight. It rarely happens by accident.

Therefore, looking forward into the future is often just as important as reflecting backwards on our past, or living in the moment.

If we never think about the direction we want to go in our life, it is very unlikely we will get there. This is why it is so important to make our values and goals clear to ourselves.

Try creating a rough timeline to better envision your goals.

The benefits of mind-wandering.

When “living in the moment” we often try to fix our attention toward something in the present – like our breathing.

And any time we deviate from this fixed awareness – or get distracted by something else that catches our attention – we beat ourselves up because we are no longer living in the present. Instead, we have what is sometimes called “monkey mind.”

However, some research suggests that mind-wandering and daydreaming can actually come with some valuable benefits.

Of course, daydreaming can be counterproductive (especially when it leads to procrastination), but other times letting our minds wander can aid in creativity and problem-solving.

This is because sometimes things distract our attention because we find them new and interesting. And keeping our minds open to different thoughts and sensations can help increase our opportunity to discover new ideas.

In this way, the occasional daydreaming and mind-wandering should be thought of as healthy.

“Living in the moment” – a common excuse to be impulsive and reckless?

This isn’t always true, but sometimes I see people use the “living in the moment” excuse as a way to justify their impulsivity and recklessness.

Say you’re at a party, solely living in the moment, without any concerns for the past or future.

With such a mindset, you may find yourself drinking lots of alcohol, taking drugs, and engaging in unsafe sex with strangers. And why not? You’re just reacting to your immediate surroundings, you’re not seeing the bigger picture of your actions, so you act in ways that only bring immediate satisfaction.

In this example, “living in the moment” becomes an excuse to find short-term gratification, but ignore long-term consequences. This is a misapplication of living in the present.

When to “live in the moment” – and when not to.

Developing mindfulness and “living in the moment” are valuable skills to learn. I can’t stress that enough, I just don’t think they are the only skills to learn.

The ability to “step outside your immediate senses” – and also reflect on the past, and plan for the future – are often just as important to your happiness and health.

In fact, reflection and foresight are valuable adaptations of the human mind that have greatly helped our evolution over time. They are also what distinguish us from more primitive minds, which can only react to information they receive on a momentary basis, and therefore can’t form memories or project into the future.

Trying to live in the moment, while completely ignoring the past and future, can be dangerous. There needs to be a balance between these different modes of awareness in order to have a healthy, functioning mind.

If you’ve ever read anyone’s success story, then you have undoubtedly found out that their victories weren’t absent from previous failures and struggles.

In many ways, those past failures are what make successful people who they are today.

Recent research has shown that when we focus on both the failures and successes of our role models, we are much more likely to be motivated and inspired by them to improve ourselves.

This is because when we see ourselves going through similar struggles as people who we look up to, we can relate to them much more. We see them as humans, and imperfect, just like the rest of us – regardless of how perfect they may seem inside our heads.

By acknowledging the more humble, imperfect, and “human-like” characteristics of our role models, we feel much more capable of overcoming similar obstacles and achieving our goals.

The truth is that even the happiest and most successful person in the world experiences downfalls every now and again. We should therefore expect to have similar struggles when pursuing our own values and goals.

A related study published in the Journal of Educational Psychology found that students who learned about a topic in science, as well as the struggles scientists go through when discovering their theories, ended up better understanding the curriculum when compared to individuals who didn’t learn the history of scientists’ struggles.

Researchers say this is because students often hold a stereotype that scientists are big brained, super geniuses. In other words, they hold an ideal about who these people are – and it’s an ideal they can’t relate to. Therefore they think scientists are somehow “special” and different from us.

But when students learn about the background of most scientists – they find that they aren’t that special, and often times they go through their own frustrations and failures.

Their success is just as much based on hard work and perseverance as it is their genes or biology. Knowing this, students become more motivated and inspired to overcome their own struggles and frustrations.

The big lesson here is to be careful of idealizing mentors, role models, and other people who we may look up to. They are, in fact, human. And they often share much of the same pain we do when trying to improve ourselves and achieve our goals.

Once we understand that even the most successful people go through rough times, we feel more capable of overcoming rough times of our own.

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