The Science Behind Mini Habits 

Do you ask your brain to wake you up at 5 AM in the morning? Or Do you revisit your day, everyday, to recollect the good things that happened through out? These little things which you practice everyday are the mini habits. 
One good thing about habits:

Smaller the habit changes are, the bigger the result might be.

Recently, I came across this magnificent book about habits, Mini Habits — By Stephen Guise . The book is a good source for understanding how habits work and we highly recommend you to have a read. But for now, let me discuss few key points which I learned from this book and tried to implement in my daily life. 

Mini Habits — What are they

Speaking in general, we all know, anything which we do regularly and effortlessly can be said to be our habit. The best thing, habits are something which we aquire, consciously and deliberately. However, there are times, I believe, when we want to develop a habit, but somehow, fail to do so. Probably because it seems too tough for us to aquire that change into our regular practices. To help us ease this, comes the Mini Habits. 

Mini habit is a very small positive behaviour that you force yourself to do everyday. They work because of the positive feedback loop they create. 
Mini habits can easily transform intentions into actions, they are too small to fail.
They reduce internal resistance to a minimum.

The one push up challenge

In the book, Mini Habits, the author decided to work towards his body physique and start a daily work out for 30 minutes. But, when he started, his body refused and he could not hit his goal of 30-minute workout. 

It is very legit to be overwhelmed by the idea that it is a beginning of a very long journey and to be get discouraged by the huge distance you see to cover between your current state and what you have dreamt for.

However, the author came up with the with a very simple What if? what if this habit( to practice daily workout) was the smallest one imaginable. A habit so small that he do not need much motivation to complete it or the brain does not face resistance in doing the same.He planned to do just one push up.
And surprisingly, once he started, he did not stop at one push up. 
Similarly he did the same with other exercises as well and slowly within a few months his body got used to exceeding this daily small objective. 

Exercise became part of his daily routine and fitness desire became a reality.
How many times have you decided to do something like this but your body refused to act upon. Do share it in the comments section below. 

Motivation vs Will power

Motivation and Willpower are inversely related.That is to say, 
the greater the motivation, the lesser willpower is needed to do a task. 

Motivation is though a little unreliable, it does not remain the same on a daily basis. Once a habit starts breaking, the long term goal is bound to collapse. Motivation is the wrong strategy for building habits.Unlike motivation, will power is far more reliable. If you really want to do something bad enough, you will do it regardless of how motivated you are. 

Remember: Willpower is not an unlimited resource.

There are 5 main powers of willpower depletion:

1. Effort
2. Perceived Difficulty
3. Negative effect
4. Subjective fatigue
5. Blood glucose levels

These Mini habits lets you fight the limitations of willpower making your chances of success higher. Here’s how it works: 

Efforts:
Acquiring Mini habits does not require much efforts . Like for doing 1 push up, you do not need to put much effort, hence it can be completed easily.

Perceived Difficulty
Writing a 2000+ words blog might feel difficulty even to begin, as it creates resistance in your brain. However, writing down 50 words at a time seems an easy task to get it done. That’s what these mini habits

Negative Effect
Negative effect means an unpleasant experience which is because of the fact you failed to do what you decided. Since mini habits can be accomplished without fail, it only adds positive experiences to your life.

Subjective Fatigue
Willpower is the battle of the mind. Ever experienced this: Sometimes it happens that you feel tired to do something, even though you are not actually that tired. Example — just thinking to do 50 pushups now might deplete your willpower now. Well, with Mini habits , it’s just a matter of one push up. Come On!!

Blood glucose levels

Sugar/Glucose is the primary energy source of your body. You feel tired if you have less glucose level in your blood. Mini habits conserve it by breaking down your objective into manageable goals. Even with low glucose levels you might take the action to complete a mini habit.

So to conclude our learnings and findings on how habits and human behaviour vary, let’s have a look at few facts: 

1. If they don’t bring results, big intentions are worthless.
2. Humans are naturally inclined to overestimate their self control ability.
3. Both mathematically and practically, doing a little bit is better than doing nothing.
4. Doing a little bit every day has a lot more impact than doing a lot on one day.

By now, I’am sure you have already made up your mind, to break down your goals into miniature ones and give it a try. Hope you find the success soon. Well, that’s what our mission is here at breakthatspace. 
Please drop in your comments on how good this blogpost is. and stay tuned for more blogs. 

Happy Reading.