With a mini habit, you can harness this power for good. It’s why I write every day, but not at any specific time. It’s why I exercise almost daily, but not on a schedule. To help you decide between these three cue options, here’s a table that shows the strengths and weaknesses of each cue.
Each cue is ranked from 1 to 5 in various categories, 5 being the best possible score. Here’s what the categories mean.
Flexibility is how much freedom you have in deciding when to perform the behavior.
Remembering is how conducive the cue is to helping you remember to do the behavior. A time-based cue is inflexible because you must complete it at a specific time, but it helps you to remember because you can put it on your calendar or set a reminder on your phone. The flexible daily plan has no concrete, single cue, meaning it’s the easiest one to forget. You can use reminders with any cue. For the flexible cue, try placing a pen on your pillow to remind you to do your mini habit before bed (or better yet, place a sticky note reminder in the fridge for your food-based mini habits).
Time to habit is the speed at which your behavior will form neural pathways and become habitual. Activity- and time-based cues will become habits faster, because they have only one pattern for the brain to recognize. If you choose a flexible daily plan, you might develop several go-to cues, and multiple behavioral patterns will take longer for the brain to solidify into habit. Flexible habits are structured a lot like “wild” habits that we form unintentionally. Smokers don’t decide to smoke at 11 PM every day, they smoke after various triggers (multiple cues). Multiple cues make it difficult to break bad habits; in the same way, when your good habits have multiple cues, they have better “stickiness,” as they aren’t dependent on one cue.
“Never lose” is the ability to successfully complete your mini habits every day and well—never lose. It’s most difficult with a time-based cue, because if you miss your cue at 2 PM, you technically failed. With a daily cue, you have all day to succeed, even if you do it right before bed. That’s not to say that it is difficult to always win with a time-based cue, only that it’s relatively more difficult than with a flexible cue.
Bonus reps is the likelihood that you’ll do more than your mini requirement. Each cue is about equal in this regard.
Multiple habits is the ease with which each cue supports multiple habits. Any of the cues can do well with multiple habits, but the flexible plan is strongest here, since you can adapt your daily habits to the flow of your day.
The best plan is the one that works for and appeals to you. All of my mini habits use the flexible daily requirement, because it suits my unscheduled lifestyle. You might not know which style suits you best right away, so don’t be afraid to experiment. You can mix and match cues as well. For example, maybe you set the goal to drink at least one glass of water per day (flexible daily), but also require one serving of vegetables at dinner (activity), and a raw carrot at 3:15 PM (time). In general, it’s probably best to choose one type of cue across all of your mini habits for simplicity, but again, the only “rule” is to do what works best for you.
If you prefer, you can just use this system by choosing up to four mini habits (and a cue for each). Alternatively, you can choose a “meal plan” for all of your food-related mini habits.
Meal Plans
These meal plans all use activity-based cues (the meal itself) and have different objectives for those meals. The strategies below share the same life-changing concepts we’ve been discussing, but their implementation is flexible to suit you.
Make sure you only choose ONE of these plans. These are competing options, not a checklist. Think of these as themes to help you remember when and how to complete your food-based mini habits. If you go with one of these meal plans, don’t forget to add on a fitness mini habit using one of the cues from the last chapter.
1. The Meal Upgrade Plan
This is my favorite strategy. In the meal upgrade plan, you choose one mini habit “upgrade” to do at every single meal you eat. This means that, even if you’re eating an unhealthy fast food meal, it’s not a total loss as you might typically see it. You can choose to chew each bite 30 times, drink water instead of soda, drink a glass of water before eating, get a lettuce wrap instead of the bun, or swap your fries for a healthier side. To determine what counts as a healthy upgrade, use your past behavior as a marker. If you already always drink water, that’s fantastic, but don’t count it as an upgrade.
The strength of this plan is that you won’t need to keep track of what you’ve done. Every meal serves as your cue to perform one small healthy “upgrade” to the way you’d typically eat. Bonus (always optional): You can make additional upgrades at any meal, or go for a giant upgrade by eating a fully healthy meal.
With this choice, you’ll form the habit of looking for small healthy upgrades when you eat, which is probably the most valuable habit to form for weight loss. You will be less likely, however, to form specific healthy habits like drinking water before meals, eating particular fruits or vegetables, and so on, because your healthy upgrade could vary with every meal.
For traveling, this is a good option, since it gives you complete flexibility and keeps you mindful of your eating habits.
2. The Meal Stronghold Plan
The goal here is to conquer one meal at a time. All of your efforts will be focused on one meal, and your other meals will be whatever you want. If you choose this plan, start with breakfast. All of your mini habits, such as adding or swapping fruits or vegetables for your usual meal, chewing your food 30 times or more, or drinking water before or during eating, will be done for this meal. Once you find yourself eating healthy food, chewing it well, and drinking water for breakfast consistently with a long winning streak, you can move on to lunch. I don’t recommend you do so before at least two months have passed, because if you switch to lunch too soon (before your breakfast behavior is habitual), you risk trying to do too much too soon, which all former dieters know ends in failure.
This is called the stronghold plan, because one meal will become your stronghold for living a healthy lifestyle. If you can permanently transform the way you eat one meal, you can do the same for all meals. Though slightly different from the traditional mini habits setup, this is still progress every day, and it will be a great foundation to build from. Choosing breakfast first is a good idea, because how you start the day can greatly influence how you finish it. When you begin each day by eating well, it might just influence your lunch and dinner decisions, even though they are “eat whatever you want.” Since there’s no pressure to eat every meal perfectly, you will be able to maintain success at breakfast.
Mini Stronghold Example: Drink one glass of water between waking up and eating breakfast, eat one serving of fruit or vegetables at breakfast, chew each bite 30 times at breakfast, and do whatever you want for lunch and dinner. You might also consider creating healthy go-to meals, like full-fat yogurt and fruit for a quick breakfast (it’s just as fast as cereal, only healthier) or eggs and spinach when you have time to cook.
3. The 2x2 Meal Plan
In this plan, you’ll pick two meals per day to do the following: Eat one serving of healthy food (vegetables or fruit in most cases) and one meal modifier (drink a glass of water before meal, chew count, eat to 80% fullness, etc.). That’s one healthy food and one modifier at two of your daily meals.
Two mini habits at two meals is four mini habits. When you add in your fitness mini habit, it makes five total mini habits, which is higher than I typically recommend. In this case, I think it’s doable for some people, since two of these mini habits are modifications of behaviors rather than new behaviors (and so they should be even easier than most mini habits). If you struggle with this plan, it’s probably because five mini habits is too many.
Choose Two Example: For breakfast, you drink a glass of water and eat a grapefruit. At dinner, you chew each bite 30 times and eat a side salad.
This is a flexible approach, because it does
n’t specify the exact food or modifier to perform at each meal. You might use an approach like this while traveling, since traveling generally requires more flexibility.
4. The Line Drive Plan
This plan is simple and easy to remember. At every meal, perform the same mini habit of your choice. For example, you can drink a glass of water before every meal or during any meal as your main beverage choice. Drinking water instead of soda alone can have a big impact on your weight and health. Another option is to eat a side of vegetables at each meal, or even a specific vegetable if you have a favorite (but availability could make that a challenge). This plan isn’t typically flexible, since you’re picking a single specific action, but you can choose a backup action in case your primary choice isn’t doable (such as a restaurant not serving your chosen vegetable).
Line Drive Example: Drink only water at every meal (assuming you eat three meals a day, this would count as three mini habits).
5. The Flexible Mini Plan
This plan means not having a meal plan. You will choose when to do your mini habits, whether it’s eating a serving of fruit or making one healthy upgrade. In the flexible plan, you can freely choose to do your mini habits all in one meal, do two for breakfast and one for lunch another day, or any other combination. You could even accomplish them in between meals. Meals are the bulk of the food we eat, so I would still attempt to prioritize meals if you go this route.
Let’s say you have three meal mini habits: one healthy upgrade, eat a serving of fruit, and chew each bite 30 times. On Sunday, you eat yogurt with blueberries, bananas, and strawberries instead of your regular cereal and milk. The yogurt is a “mini upgrade” over milk (probiotics and gut health), and your multiple servings of fruit meet your daily fruit goal and then some. That’s two of three. You eat fast food for lunch. For dinner, you have steak and potatoes, and chew each bite 30 times (and a few more chews for the steak). That’s three for three. Success!
The Final Word on Meal Plans
Choose only one of these meal plans to do at a time. You can choose an alternate meal plan for traveling, but otherwise, pick one plan and be consistent with it. This is what will change your brain and help you develop better habits that can benefit you for a lifetime.
Your chosen strategy here will serve as your core food strategy, but there’s also fitness, snacking, meditation, and other non-meal mini habits to consider. Don’t forget about them! I recommend adding a fitness mini habit to your meal plan, with an activity-based, time-based, or flexible daily cue. For simplicity’s sake and for “healthy living synergy,” you might consider using meals as the cue for your exercise mini habit as well (e.g., one push-up before dinner). I would suggest doing it before your meal, since exercising immediately after eating is rarely a fun experience.
If you think these plans aren’t “enough,” you’re probably still thinking in terms of dieting, and you’re discounting the power of real, long-term change. Consider this: Once you develop a healthy eating habit, it becomes effortless, and you can build from it. Most people underestimate the power of this because it isn’t flashy; it just works. Dieting fails because it’s too much at once for the brain and the body. This is the right dose of change that can sneakily make you stronger.
Now that we’ve discussed the general structure of how you’ll be integrating positive changes into your life, let’s discuss some of the questions you may still have.
Tracking
Tracking your progress is important for three reasons: it proves your commitment, encourages you daily, and lets you know exactly how well you’re doing over time.
Here are some strategies for tracking your progress. In whatever strategy you choose, I recommend that you check off your success before you go to sleep. If you check off your task early in the day, the sense of completion might make you feel less motivated to do “bonus reps.” Also, it's a good habit to check it off before bed so that you don't forget.
The Big Calendar (Recommended)
This is the strategy I use for tracking my mini habits. I use a large desk calendar on the wall in my room. I write my mini habits on a nearby dry erase board, and check off every day on the calendar when I complete them. It's simple and it works great. Checking off a successful day still feels great after months of mini habits!
Another option is a yearly “at a glance” calendar if you're just going to be checking off days. And a smart budget move is to print one of the many free printable calendars you'll find online (tip: simply print out your Gmail calendar). Physically making a check mark makes your success feel more tangible than digital tracking does. Additionally, if you put it in a prominent place where you'll see it often, it's going to make you mindful of your mini habits, your progress, and your success. Don't underestimate the impact of this!
The only excuse for breaking the chain of successful days is forgetting, because mini habits are too easy to fail. But forgetting is a poor excuse too, because your calendar will be in plain sight and every night before bed you'll ask, “Did I do my mini habits today?” And just to throw this out there, your mini habits don’t have to be a fad you'll drop in a few months, this can be a lifetime pursuit. It works too well and is too flexible to quit!
Both writing down your mini habits initially and checking them off as you go is vital to your success. Don't skip it. Regardless of how you track your mini habits completion, I suggest you at least handwrite the habits themselves in a place you can see.
App Tracking
Some people will want to use their smartphone, and while I prefer the old-fashioned way, smartphones have some significant advantages. The first is accessibility—people carry their smartphones with them everywhere, even on vacations overseas. The second advantage is in visibility and reminders—some apps can remind you to do your mini habits, or serve as a concrete cue to take action.
Visit http://minihabits.com/tools/ for the updated list of recommended apps.
Final Note About All Digital Apps
You're going to see ideas for pre-made healthy habits to add from these apps and websites. Resist the urge to start these habits unless they are already minified (unlikely). If you really like one of them, make sure that you minify it before adding it to your repertoire! It looks fun to try doing 100 push-ups per day, but it's less fun when you quit. It's more fun to have one push-up per day as a goal and blow that tiny goal away for 200+ days in a row.
Rolling for Mini Habits
The following technique can be integrated into your mini habit plan however you wish (or not at all). You can even use this fun method to choose all of your mini habits each day. It’s up to you. If you have trouble choosing between several options, you’ll love this!
On a piece of paper or on your phone, list and number six of the same type of mini habit (food or fitness). For example, you might write this list for a fitness mini habit:
One push-up
One sit-up
10 jumping jacks
Run in place for 30 seconds
Walk to the end of your driveway
Dance for one song
Make sure the list is somewhere that you’ll see it daily—your desk, the refrigerator, an app in your phone, and so on. When you’re ready to do a mini habit, get one die or two dice (or a dice rolling app).
With One Die
If you’re using one die, roll it every day, and do the mini habit that corresponds to the number you roll. If your list was the one above and you rolled a five today, you would then walk to the end of your driveway. This gives you two opportunities for bonus reps: you can walk further than your driveway, or you can roll again!
IMPORTANT: one list takes the place of only ONE of your mini habits. You’ll still only do one of these per day. If you really like this idea, you can create up to four lists (for four mini habits) to roll for each list to determine what you do that day.
With Two Dice
If you’re using two dice, you have the option of expanding your list to 12 activit
ies and doing what number you roll. Alternatively, you can keep the list at six mini habits and give yourself an either/or choice. If you roll a three and a four for this list, you’d choose between 10 jumping jacks and running in place for 30 seconds. If you roll a double six, then you must dance!
Optional Features
You can consider adding one difficult action to the list. For example, maybe you would put “run one mile” as number one, so if you roll a one, you’d have to run a mile. That isn’t a mini habit, but it does add some stakes to the roll, and it makes your other mini habits seem really easy by comparison (a good thing!).
If you add a difficult challenge, you might consider adding some kind of reward to another number. For example, you could make six a “free choice,” roll in which you choose your mini habit. Or you could keep six at “dance to one song” and add a small piece of candy as a bonus for rolling six. (See minihabits.com for more reward ideas.)
Mini Habits for Weight Loss: Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering. Page 20