December 17, 2024
by Stephen T. Messenger
Small habits done consistently over time generate success. I’ve seen this theory put into action across two decades of military experience where small-scale, routine accomplishments beat a surge effort every time to get things done.
We’re all busy people. The challenge is to find time to tackle those passionate projects we’ve always wanted to accomplish. Maybe our goal is to get faster at running, read more books, journal, practice a religious discipline, learn a language, or tackle another project.
I did something this year I had absolutely no time in my life to do. I wrote a book. (It’s in draft form and needs a lot of editing, but it has potential to be submitted to a publisher in the near future).
I knew that I wanted to write one, but with a military job, a summer move, learning a new position, finishing a doctorate, raising four kids, staying healthy, and trying to have a life, there was no way to sit down for hours to write. So instead, in January I drew up an outline in January and every week wrote a section.
One year later, I’ve consolidated these 48 pieces and have a healthy draft. Without making small, incremental gains week by week, there’s no way I’d have a book draft sitting in front of me.
The key to these larger projects is to make small, continuous progress to achieve a larger goal.
The Atomic Push-up
Youtuber Jack Clancy challenged himself to 100 push-ups a day for a year in 2019. On Day One, Clancy stated that he could only do 14 push-ups in a row. He then had to squeeze out the remaining 86 over time. That number slowly increased until he could easily accomplish it.
The revelation, he stated, was having the dedication to perform push-ups every single day. His constant effort was rewarded with continuous progress.
Another 49-year-old set a goal to complete 100 push-ups without stopping. His first set on January 2nd was 36 in a row. He did not perform them daily so he would build in recovery time, but after 48 attempts over nine months, he hit his goal.
The log he kept of his push-up journey was telling. When he routinely and consistently practiced leveraging rest days, he showed progress – at one point increasing by 25 push-ups in 18 days across eight sessions. When he did not perform them consistently, his progress slowed – increasing by only four reps over two months during a mere five sessions. Consistency is important.
James Clear in his book Atomic Habits talks about getting 1% better every day through consistency. He argues that small habits are game changers, such as writing a few pages about a topic every week could result in a complete book after a year.
He then argues it’s not about setting goals, but about establishing systems to repetitively perform tasks. Finally, these habits, when done right, create a new identity where we’re not defined by our goals but by the things we do.
Clear goes on to say that we first need to decide the type of people we want to be and then become that person through small wins. If we can turn those small habits into wins over time with a clear purpose and goal in mind, we accomplish great things!
The Need for Consistency
As we consistently knock out our habits day after day, an amazing phenomenon occurs. We get better! Five key things occur when we’re consistent: we gain accountability, get better, become more confident, build momentum, and generate progress.
Create Accountability. When we make our habits non-negotiable, it’s easier to accomplish them. To create my book shell, I gave myself a weekly deadline to finish three pages every Tuesday. It had to go out! I would be letting myself down if I didn’t.
We perform even better when we have accountability partners. They keep us responsible for achieving those habits even more. For example, my dad loves to ask about the next three pages every week. Being accountable to ourselves and others forces us to complete our goals.
Improve Quality. Constantly performing an action naturally makes us better. Malcolm Gladwell opined it takes 10,000 hours to become a phenom. While we’re probably not looking to become a freakish expert in our respective goals, constant practice over many hours significantly improves our skills.
Reviewing my book draft in its entirety, it’s painfully obvious that the articles I wrote near the end of the year were much better than those at the beginning. The adage “practice makes perfect,” may not be entirely true, but practice “certainly makes better.”
Build Confidence. Habitual practice increases the positive perception we have of our work. James Clear emphasized this point when he said habits start to establish our new identity by changing us to become better people through small wins. These wins equate to improved self-esteem over time.
In my book journey this year, I know my confidence in writing has risen every week. The process has become more natural with every repetition. Moreover, it’s been fun to see my writing improve, resulting in more self-confidence.
Generate Momentum. It’s interesting that habits beget habits. I often joke how I like to streak – not the “sans-clothes running;” but the “do something daily” type of streaking like studying the Bible, working out, or eating healthy. Once we see our streaks grow, our subconscious doesn’t want to break it and start over.
Moreover, our brain sees the goodness in streaking. There’s momentum when we do things over time. Halfway through this past year, I started to envision a future where writing a book could actually become a reality. When we see the gains from our habits, we want to do more.
Demonstrate Results. Just like our push-up friends, habits create results. Generating results is what it’s about at the end of the day. The Army’s mission is to “deploy, fight, and win our nation’s wars.” The only way to do that is through continuous military training and repetition to get better each day.
The result of my one-year journey was a complete book draft. There was no way I could have done this in one chunk of time. I needed to write, reflect, think, edit, and shape thoughts over time. My creativity tank wouldn’t support a non-stop writing period, but routine and repetitive patterns allowed progress to be made!
Make Gains Over Time, Not All at Once
Repetitive habits demonstrate exponential growth. If we establish good routines, we’ll start to see these gains in accountability, quality, confidence, momentum, and results. Moreover, our tasks will look less like independent parts of a puzzle and more like holistic goals that we’re trying to achieve.
Consider what habits you need to start as we approach the end of the year, and take the chance to start something new.
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This website is a personal blog and all writings, podcasts, opinions, and posts are the authors’ own and do not represent the views of the United States Army nor any other organization. Podcast music credit in this audio file is to: “Alex Productions – Legends” is under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0). / @alexproductionsnocopyright
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