Christine Carter: The 1-minute secret to forming a new habit | TED

Introduction

In this video, the speaker talks about how to establish new habits and change behavior. She shares her personal experience of struggling to follow through on her own advice during the pandemic.

Struggling with Habits

• The speaker struggled to maintain her pre-coronavirus routines when the stay-at-home order was issued.

• Even though she is a coach in habit formation, she found it difficult to follow her own advice.

• The speaker loves setting ambitious goals but realized that getting into a good habit requires being willing to be bad at it.

Importance of Being Willing to Be Bad

• Our ability to change our behavior doesn't depend on our reasons or willpower but on our willingness to be bad at it.

• When motivation wanes, we tend to do the easiest thing, which is why new behaviors require a lot of effort.

• To establish an exercise routine, the speaker needed to let herself be kind of half-assed about it and stop trying to be an actual athlete.

Starting Small

• The speaker started exercising again by running for only one minute at a time every morning after brushing her teeth.

• This minimal effort always turns out better than doing nothing.

Conclusion

The key takeaway from this video is that establishing new habits requires being willing to start small and accept being bad at it. It's important not to set overly ambitious goals and instead focus on making small changes consistently over time.

Starting Small

In this section, the speaker encourages listeners to start small and do something easy that they can repeat every day.

Better-Than-Nothing Behavior

• The only requirement is to stop trying to be so good.

• Abandon grand plans temporarily and consider doing something minuscule.

• Ask yourself how you can strip that thing you've been meaning to do into something so easy you could do it every day with barely a thought.

• Try doing one better-than-nothing behavior.

Repetition is Key

• The goal is repetition, not high achievement.

• Take only one step, but take that step every day.

• Initiating a behavior is often the hardest part of establishing a new habit.

Benefits of Better-Than-Nothing Habits

• A better-than-nothing habit turns out to be incredibly easy to repeat again and again until it's on autopilot.

• Once we start acting on autopilot, our habit can begin to expand organically.

Risking Everything by Doing Too Much

In this section, the speaker warns against encouraging ourselves to do more than our designated better-than-nothing habit.

The Danger of Overachieving

• Encouraging ourselves to do more than our designated better-than-nothing habit risks everything.

• Checking your phone instead of what you intended to do or staying on the couch binge-watching videos are examples of risking everything.

• Thinking we "should" do more introduces difficulty and force, eliminating the possibility that it will be easy and even enjoyable.

The Better-Than-Nothing Habit

In this section, the speaker talks about how the better-than-nothing habit doesn't depend on motivation or having a lot of energy. It only requires being willing to do something that is just a little bit better than nothing.

Becoming a Runner

• After months of struggle, the speaker became a runner by allowing themselves to be bad at it.

• The goal is not to be better than other people but rather to be better than our previous selves.

• The speaker is now consistent in their running routine and has improved from where they started.

Shifting Our Focus

• When we abandon our grand plans and great ambitions in favor of taking that first step, we shift.

• It's only in that tiny shift that our grand plans and great ambitions are truly born.