Baby steps towards a habit (4/10)
This is the Fourth Article of a 10 part series as we approach the end of 2021. In this series, we feature 10 handpicked nuggets from the Play to Potential Podcast over the next few days to help you pause, reflect and take on 2022 with renewed energy, clarity and commitment.
I wanted to bring your attention to a highly nuanced point I picked up in the conversations in 2021. This was with Tom Vanderbilt, author of the Book: Beginners - The joy and transformative power of lifelong learning. He spoke about an interesting observation about children at the Infant Action Lab in New York University. But before we go there, let me share a few pieces I have learnt about Habit formation from some of the guests at the podcast.
Habits and link with Motivation and Awareness
BJ Fogg, the author of book - Tiny Habits, was on the podcast earlier and he has an interesting approach to habit building. He suggests that there is a Motivation - Ability indifference curve and any habit formation has to happen to the right of the curve with the help of a relevant prompt. The crux of the insight is that when our Motivation levels in an activity are low (lower end of Y axis), we need to ensure that we pick a tiny element of the activity to start with (right end of X axis). As we build and motivation and ability over time, we should consider moving along the Indifference curve. During the conversation, he also speaks at length about the different kinds of prompts that could help us trigger the habit.
Designing a new habit and finding a place for it in your life is a bit like determine where to hang a painting on a wall - Adapted from BJ Fogg
Building Habits with Awareness
The thing with habits is that it is very easy for us to build habits but become slaves to our habits. Mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik spoke about this at the podcast where he says that being blindly driven by our habits is a bit like being a Pavlovian dog where one could end up losing the locus of control in the moment. He suggests that we focus on building Awareness instead of obsessing about habits.
However, we all know that there is a benefit to habit. It helps us get things done and not be swayed by the vagaries of our mind in the moment. The challenge then becomes, how do we build habits but still not lose our awareness at any moment in time. This seems like a paradox with no clear answers. The answer may lie in a practice called Pointing and Calling that is followed in Japanese train stations. This was brought to my attention by James Clear - Author of Atomic Habits. He speaks about this practice by Japanese in the context of building habits but with awareness. The video here might give you some context.
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Randomising the steps like a baby
Earlier in the year, I learnt something simple yet profound from Tom Vanderbilt as mentioned in the beginning of the article. Inspired by his young daughter’s insatiable need to know how to do almost everything, Tom Vanderbilt went on a year of learning purely for the sake of learning. He tackles five skills, choosing them for their difficulty to master and their lack of marketability–chess, singing, surfing, drawing, and juggling. He tries to decode what it takes to learn from his experiences. In our conversation, he speaks about a thing or two that we can learn from how babies learn. He says that the term baby steps is not just about taking small steps. He says that babies are smart and when they try to learn something, they do it in a variety of settings so that the learning is robust. To me that is a fascinating insight. I learn the guitar on weekends. My guitar teacher often asks me to practice the scale at different places in the fretboard and by holding the guitar in different positions. I guess it comes from a similar place of cementing a certain skill.
Be a Flexible Fernando
Katy Milkman (Professor at Wharton and Author of How to Change - the science of getting from where you are to where you want to be) speaks about what it takes to build a robust habit. She speaks to a similar theme that Tom makes about how babies learn. She speaks about two archetypes – Flexible Fernando and Robust Rachels to illustrate the point. She goes on to say that Fernandos end up building a habit that is likely to stick despite the vagaries of real life as compared to Rachels (any gender related themes are just a mere coincidence!). She expands on this topic here.
While there is a lot of literature around the smallness of baby steps, I feel there is inadequate commentary around the exploratory nature of baby steps. As is the case in a lot of situations in life, there is a thing or two we can learn from kids when it comes to habit formation.
If you want to dig in further into various themes around building habits, you might like this Curated Playlist on Habits at the podcast.
This is the 4th note in a series of 10 year ending articles capturing some of the lessons I learnt in 2021 from the Play to Potential Podcast (including reference to some of the insights from the archives). Other articles in this Year ending series include Other articles in this Year ending series include Other articles in this Year ending series include 1) Reflecting on our identities 2) Becoming the Chief Life Officer 3) Developing your Highlights Reel 5) Dealing with Lifequakes 6) Multiple levels of listening 7) Unlocking more women leaders 8) Our relationship with time 9) Driving psychological safety 10) Opportunity for a fresh start