by Fumio Sasaki
Step 7: Become a detective who looks for the real criminal
For many years, it was my goal to get up early in the morning, but I just couldn’t do it. There were many possible reasons for this. Because there were multiple potential culprits, I had to look for the true criminal, like a detective. This is how I deduced my “early riser murder mystery.”
I kept hitting snooze after my alarm went off at the time that I’d wanted to get up. Hitting snooze had become a habit.
It should have been possible to get up without an alarm clock if I had been getting enough sleep. It appeared, then, that I wasn’t getting enough sleep.
I wasn’t sleeping enough because I was drinking liquor before bed and thus sleeping late. There was also the possibility that I was sleeping lightly because of the alcohol. Aha! Drinking was my first potential culprit.
No, it could have been the snacks. I couldn’t completely discard the possibility that because I was going to bed on a full stomach, I was sleeping longer hours to digest all that food. It was also possible that I wasn’t using a pillow that was right for me.
But alcohol still felt like the most probable culprit. So why, then, was I drinking before going to bed? Perhaps there was another mastermind involved.
As I proceeded with my investigation, I came across a diary entry from a particular day where I was regretting drinking again. The entry told me that, first, I was upset that I couldn’t get started on a file that I needed to write. I somehow managed to refrain from buying beer at a supermarket and bought a bag of potato chips instead. But after I finished eating the chips in a few minutes, I developed a sense of self-doubt. Then, I couldn’t control the desire for beer that I had once forgone and ran to a nearby store. I could no longer stop myself after the first beer. Next, I went to the store again to buy a stronger chuhai as my second drink.
What started this vicious circle was that I didn’t write the material that I was supposed to write, which led to me feeling worried. It appeared that the reason I began to drink was that I hadn’t taken proper care of the work that I was supposed to complete in the afternoon. That had been the ultimate culprit in my inability to get up early.
It’s fun to dig into situations in this way to figure out where a bad habit begins.
Step 8: Don’t make identity an excuse
There are many writers and editors who have layers of documents piled up on their desks. I used to be like that. It’s true that they need a lot of reference materials, and it’s a busy line of work.
But I discovered that once I tried not to put anything on my desk, it didn’t cause any inconveniences; in fact, my work went very smoothly.
There’s something like a sense of dandyism among reporters and editors. To do a good job, you have to have stacks of material on your desk. Maybe it’s a guise: you want to appear that you’re working so hard, you have no time to clean up.
Geniuses don’t wait for inspiration
In these ways, occupations are accompanied by illusions. An author takes his time writing. An artist waits for inspiration.
I heard that Haruki Murakami was once told by another author that “a manuscript is something that you write after the deadline has arrived.” You wait until the last minute before your deadline and you forge ahead with your manuscript once you have your inspiration.
As I mentioned earlier, these types of illusions are shattered in the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, which follows the daily lives of 161 authors and artists. People who are actually active in their fields have very regular routines and habits. The artist Chuck Close says that it’s an amateur thought that people draw when they get struck by inspiration: professionals like him get to work when it’s time to work.
The composer John Adams also said that, in his experience, the habits of truly creative people are extremely plain, and there’s nothing particularly interesting about them.
Identities can be changed
Not only can you learn to look past the illusions associated with your occupation, but it’s possible to change your overall identity.
There was a time when I was convinced that I was a night person, and someone who couldn’t live without alcohol. Most members of my family are fat, and when I was fat, too, I believed it was genetic.
In reality, my being fat was simply because I’d accumulated bad habits; being fat at the time didn’t mean that that couldn’t be changed. Now, as a minimalist, if I were to hold back from getting the things that I really want because of that minimalist identity, I would be getting my priorities backwards. Our present identities shouldn’t constrain our future actions.
Step 9: Start with keystone habits
Among the different types of habits are those called “keystone habits.” Keystone habits lead to the development of other habits—like a domino effect.
My keystone habit was cleaning up, which began when I became a minimalist. Once I reduced the number of clothes and plates that I had, I couldn’t accumulate laundry or dirty dishes in the first place. I began to take care of the clothes and dishes I did have, and doing so was simple because there wasn’t much to clean or organize. What happened then was that I began to enjoy doing household chores, something I used to think I despised. You can develop a fondness for things that you previously hated, under the right conditions. That was what initially prompted my interest in habits. People develop a fondness for things that are easy to do and offer rewards, and can quickly make them a habit.
Minimalism will lower the hurdle for developing other habits
Because I select things carefully now, I spend less time shopping and managing my possessions. The time that I save is useful for acquiring new habits. And the advantage of reducing your possessions is that it lowers the hurdle for starting to work on all your other new habits.
For example, I was able to make yoga a part of my routine because my decluttered room made it easy to pull out and put away my yoga mat. If you can’t find your gym clothes, you may stop going to the gym. You feel completely different when you wake up in a tidy room than in a messy one. I believe that minimalism is a pretty effective way to acquire other good habits.
If you’re unsure about where you should begin with acquiring good habits, I recommend reducing your belongings as a first step. If you reduce your things appropriately, less mess will build up. You’ll develop a habit of putting items away after using them.
Reducing things through exercise
Of course, the order in which new habits are acquired will vary from person to person. Some people will start by developing an exercise routine. I know someone who, first, made it a habit to work out. Once he did that, he looked better, and thus felt that simple clothes like a tee shirt and jeans were enough. And after he began to reduce the amount of clothing he had, he also went on to reduce his other possessions. There are probably those who would like to start with a diet. There are also people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who began with a habit of working out with weights, and whose career expanded as an actor and then as a politician.
Waking up early is both the vanguard and the general
Waking up early in the morning is also an important habit. We can’t control the number of hours we spend at school or at work, but the morning is a time when we can choose the hour at which we get up. The time after you get up is the time when you can concentrate the best. As the day goes by, unexpected things and distractions will happen and build up, so it’s best to do what you want to do in the morning.
For me, it isn’t tough to get up early, as I usually get plenty of sleep. But there are times when I wake up in the middle of the night, and then when it’s time to get up in the morning, I want to get more sleep. To overcome that, I remind myself that not getting up early in the morning will inhibit good habits. Even though I’ve been keeping track of my habits to date by writing notes in my diary and on my app, I often skip yoga, a habit that follows getting up in the morning, and my meditation, which I can’t do when I can’t get up early. As we
’ve seen in Chapter 1, a sense of self-doubt is generated by not following a regimen, and willpower gets lost. Those are the times when I end up lounging around all day.
If you fail at getting up early, all the habits that depend on that one collapse. That’s why I began to think that waking up early is both the vanguard and the general. Waking up early is a must, and if you lose that first battle, you will lose in all the battles.
By assigning more responsibility to the act of getting up early, I can now get up earlier. Right after I get up, I get my body moving with yoga, and my head clears right away. With the development of this habit, I fight the morning grogginess with the thought that I’ll have a clear head in five minutes, anyway, and can then manage to start my day.
Step 10: Keep a diary to record observations about yourself
One habit that I recommend starting as early as possible is keeping a diary. It’s a record of your progress. I doubt that anyone can acquire good habits without a single lapse just by reading this book. In fact, you can’t gain a real sense that there are truly disadvantages to not acquiring good habits unless you continue to fail. That’s why we should keep track of our failures. We should keep records of the types of excuses we make for our failures and the types of situations that we were in. That way, it’ll be easier to cope when a similar situation occurs.
The psychologist Kelly McGonigal explains the importance of reflecting on the moment you chose your course of action. Through a diary, we can reflect on when we made a decision for the purpose of accomplishing a habit, or how we went about coming up with a good excuse.
You’ll understand your hidden tendencies
Unless you record everything, you can twist the truth at your convenience as much as you want. Related to this idea is the psychological phenomenon of “motivated reasoning,” which purports that you first decide whether or not to do something, then come up with the reasoning.
Here’s an example: when I started thinking about cutting carbs, I was at a point where I couldn’t control my intake. It says in my diary: “I heard it’s more efficient to have the occasional cheat day to eat lots of carbs instead of always staying off them.” Because of this reasoning, I set up many cheat days.
My diary also shows that I had been justifying my alcohol intake with reasons such as: “Hey, red wine seems to have a fat-burning effect!” and “I’m celebrating the reprint of my book!” But it wasn’t that I wanted to celebrate. I just wanted to drink.
Once I find an excuse that sounds right, there’s no stopping me. Unless I keep a record, my memory will be altered as to which of my reasons were actually excuses. Records are ruthless. I’ve written over and over in my diary that I thought I was only going to drink one glass of liquor, but once I did, I couldn’t stop. In keeping and reviewing records, the disadvantages finally sink in. It was an impossible dream for me to drink just one glass.
A clear marker for when to start worrying about my weight
You can see your hidden tendencies by examining your own diary. I’m five feet, nine inches tall. I start to get concerned about the flab on my stomach and my chin when my weight goes over 150 pounds, and I end up losing my ability to concentrate. Through my diary, I’ve learned that I always react the same way when I exceed that weight. So, I try to keep my weight under this clear 150-pound mark. By keeping records in my diary, I’ve learned to objectively identify the point when I start to get into what I used to vaguely call “a mood.”
A tip for diary entries: Write the facts
When keeping a diary, focus on writing the facts rather than writing well. Many people think that writing a diary means writing metaphors and essays filled with lessons. That’s tough, and you won’t continue to write. It’s good enough to write so that you understand it, rather than on the precondition that someone else will read it.
I was able to continue keeping a diary after reading The Magical Power of Diaries by Saburo Omote. Omote says that, more than anything, a diary is a record. That’s why diaries contain facts about your everyday life, like drinking grapefruit juice or smoking a cigarette. The type of wonderful events that you might write an essay about don’t happen every day, but trivial things do. That’s why you can write the truth at the beginning. What time you woke up, that you ate a combo meal featuring deep-fried horse mackerel for lunch. Even things like these will bring back memories and be fun.
The situation will vary from person to person. The diary that you’ve been writing will become like a medical record just for you, for the purpose of acquiring habits. You can then formulate a cure to match.
Step 11: Meditate to enhance your cognitive ability
I recommend meditation as a habit to acquire at the outset. It’ll serve as training for cognition—your cool system. Meditating allows you to be meta-aware, which means that you have a sense of what you’re thinking and what you’re feeling from a third-person point of view.
It means you’ll learn to think: “There’s a person inside me who wants to eat a marshmallow,” rather than, “I want to eat a marshmallow.”
It is said that people think some seventy thousand thoughts over the course of a day. Meditation is an act of recognizing that you’re going ahead and thinking, and returning your awareness to your breathing. You hone in on the sensation on your skin while you breathe. Air enters through your nostrils, passes through your throat, enters your lungs, and goes back up. While meditating, you become hyper-aware of each area of your body where breathing happens. You’ll find that it’s not that easy, because your awareness will immediately fly off in different directions. The human mind really starts to chat away. But when you continue to try this, you’ll learn to be able to see your emotions and your desires objectively.
Meditating quickly became a habit for me. While this is owing in part to the fact that my apartment was already clean and had an area set aside for relaxing, I think it’s primarily because the rewards come right away when you meditate. After I meditate, even the “resolution” of what I see seems to improve. The sediment-like things that were stuck in my brain dissolve, and I simply feel good and clear.
Meditation and alcohol dependence
Meditation is also used to treat alcohol dependence. It’s been revealed that when you meditate, it helps to control the activity in the brain’s posterior cingulate cortex.
This area is associated with the act of thinking about the same thing over and over. Obsession is generated through the repetition of thoughts. “I’m a useless human being.” “Nothing goes right no matter what I do.” Meditation, which gives you a third-party perspective, is an effective method to reexamine such beliefs.
Step 12: Realize that enthusiasm won’t occur before you do something
The problem … isn’t that you don’t feel motivated; it’s that you imagine you need to feel motivated.
—Oliver Burkeman
Back when I didn’t have a habit of exercising every day, I realized that it was more difficult to actually go to the gym than it was to lift weights or run when I got to the gym.
I never have a problem making up my mind to go home when I’m lifting weights. I don’t have a problem deciding whether to run another step further when I’m in the middle of a run, either. But before going to the gym, I used to wonder, “Should I go today, or should I skip it?” or, “I don’t really feel like going today.”
GOOD HABIT INHIBITOR: Relying on your motivation
The problem is that you have the preconception that if you wait, that thing called “motivation” will come naturally. Neuroscientist Yuji Ikegaya’s words perfectly express why this is a mistake: “You won’t feel motivated unless you start acting. You feel motivated when the nucleus accumbens in the brain functions, but it doesn’t function unless you start doing something.”
Motivation will occur when you tentatively start something. It’s tough to get yourself to go to the gym, but because the brain will become motivated as long as you go and start your workout, exercising itself won’t be
tough.
There are no regrets when you run
It is also important to note that you won’t regret protecting the habits that you have accumulated. I’ve felt regret a lot of times for not being able to protect habits like exercising, when I’d been trying to acquire them. But I’ve never once thought “I shouldn’t have gotten up early” in the morning, or “Working out … what a big mistake!” after going to the gym. If you feel like skipping something, it might be effective to ask yourself: “Will I regret it if I do?”
I think you should follow a similar principle when you’re making an important choice in your life. Author and innovator Tina Seelig notes that when you aren’t sure about making a judgment, you should weave a story so you can talk proudly about it in the future. No one would want to lend you an ear if you told them about your life and you said your reason for not making a choice you wanted to make was because you were busy, you didn’t have enough money, or you were uncertain about your abilities.
Step 13: Whatever you do, lower your hurdles
To motivate yourself, you must first get started. What do you do to get started? It’s important to lower every possible hurdle.
Various physics metaphors can be used to describe the difficulty of getting started.