How To Stick With Positive Habits – Three Tips

We all strive to form positive habits; it’s much harder to actually stick with these positive habits. Many people fail to stick to their new year’s resolutions. Why? They don’t know effective ways of creating and sticking with their positive habits.

If you’re unsure of what habits to create, you can check out this post on the three best positive habits. I’ve also gone into habit creation; use both to pick a habit then learn how to form it. This post will expand on both, by sharing how you can stick with your positive habits.

Note: This post is for sticking with positive habits, not how to break negative habits. If you’d like a post on that, leave a comment.

How To Stick With Positive Habits
1. Use The Two-Day Rule

I learned this rule from Matt D’Avella and I often encourage people to try it out. The rule states:

You may take a day off from doing your habit, but never two days in a row.

If you can do your habit every day, great. But, having the freedom and flexibility to take a day off here and there can motivate you to keep going.

Why does this work?

It can be useful to have intentional breaks when forming a habit. There is less stress and worry about ‘maintaining the streak’, which means you feel less down if you miss a day. As long as you get back up, you’re allowed to take a day off.

How To Stick With Positive Habits
2. Maintaining The Streak

The easiest way to stick with positive habits is to maintain a streak. This is in contrast to the two-day rule; here, you do the habit every day. No exceptions.

When using this technique, it’s vital to have a visual reminder of your progress. This could be a large physical calendar or whiteboard, or using digital software such as Google Calendar or an app. Having some way to track your progress is important to maintaining the streak. It’s motivation and a reminder of how far you’ve come.

The Seinfield Strategy

Jerry Seinfield, one of the most successful comedians in the world, follows this technique. When he was starting out, he got a large wall calendar and a red marker. Each day he wrote a joke, he’d cross off that day on the calendar. He did this for his habit of writing a joke every day.

The next time he’d write a joke, he’d cross that day off. And again, and again. Eventually, he started to build up a chain of crosses, not skipping a day.

Now, your only task is to not break the chain. To maintain the streak. You’ll start to like the look of the chain, as it gets longer every day. It will feel difficult to break it, which is exactly the point! This strategy is useful for maintaining the streak.

When getting started though, as you’re trying to form the habit, I recommend using the two-day rule. Once you get a chain forming, maintain it!

How To Stick With Positive Habits
3. Control Your Ambition

The biggest error that people make when trying to stick with positive habits is being too ambitious. They try to create habits that are too big a change from their daily lives.

The concept of Atomic Habits is to start small. To make it as easy as possible, so that it’s difficult not to do the habit. This approach is more successful than being ambitious with your habits. By starting small, solidifying that habit, then building up once established, the process is easier. It’s more likely the habit will stick.

Going for an hour-long run every morning is too ambitious. Putting on your running shoes isn’t. Once your running shoes are on, go for a light jog. At the core of both is the habit of exercising in the morning. One approach is unlikely to work, the other is too easy not to work.

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