Habitual Inertia

I wrote an article way back in 2012 about the good habits you need to develop to build the inertia for change. All of these habits are common sense, you may think. We’ve already talked about common sense earlier in our courses, and the lack of it is not doing the obvious, even when it’s staring you in the face. On this note, let’s take a few moments to talk about a few really obvious things you can do to build that inertia.

As you know, a habit is something you do instinctively. It’s something you do without thinking. To build a habit, you need repetition. You need to do something often enough to be able to do it, as the expression goes, with your eyes closed. This repetition is the first of the inertia habits, and it’s the foundation on which everything else is built.

‘What’s the simplest thing you can do every day that’ll make that happen?’ is something I’ve said to hundreds, if not thousands, of patients who are stuck. The trick is finding something and keeping doing it regularly. Building that positive habit with this repetition until it just happens, and then find another thing, then another and build through repetition those positive habits you need. Repetition builds good and bad habits. We’ve all got a few bad ones, but having some good ones is the key to constantly building the inertia to get what you want.

Remember, a habit is a habit when it’s hard not to do it, and you do it without thinking about it. So build the good habits with simple repetition by doing those easy things you know you need to do. It sounds simple because it is simple. The problem is that most people overcomplicate it, looking for the perfect habit, the optimal routine, the ideal system. Just pick something simple and do it every day.

Consistency

Consistency is the next thing that builds change inertia. Think of repetition as the number of times you do something, whereas consistency is about keeping doing it. As well as helping build the habit, consistency is about keeping the habit, reinforcing the habit, and ingraining the pattern in your behaviour until it becomes second nature. The way to build consistency is to schedule the action and make it a daily thing. You need to keep going until you feel at a loss if you don’t do something, and consistency is the key.

I see people all the time who do something for a week, then stop for three weeks, then do it again for a few days, then stop for a month. They’re getting repetition, but they’re not getting consistency. The habit never takes root because they keep pulling it up to check if it’s growing. You need to leave it alone and just keep watering it every single day without checking whether it’s working yet.

Make it easy

Make the habit easy. Remember that question I ask patients, and I’m now asking you for that matter, ‘what’s the simplest thing you can do?’ The habit needs to be easy. You need to make the new habits easy to do. If your new habit requires ten steps and fifteen minutes of preparation, you’re not going to do it regularly enough to make it stick. You can probably see that I’ve cobbled this “make it easy” idea together from James Clear’s four laws of behaviour change — it’s one of his four, and it’s doing exactly the same job here. Make it so easy you’d feel stupid not doing it — that phrase isn’t mine either; you can probably see that I’ve cobbled it together from BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits method, where making the habit as tiny and effortless as possible is the whole point.

For me, it’s not going running or cycling in the morning that’s the issue. I enjoy that bit. For me, it’s the stumbling around in a cold house, trying not to wake everyone else, looking for my heart rate monitor, my kit, my watch, my headphones, and my shoes. To make sure I exercise the next morning, I get my kit ready the night before. In that way, I’m up and out before I’ve even woken up properly. The decision’s already made, the barriers are already removed, and I’m moving before my brain can talk me out of it.

The trick is finding out what makes your habit easier. The easier the task, the easier it is for it to become automatic. If it’s too complicated, if it takes too much thinking or processing power, it’s going to take longer to become a habit. Break things down, make the task easier, do it at the right time, in the right place, and have things prepared in advance. Make it a no-brainer. Remove every possible source of friction between you and the action you want to take.

Get a Trigger

Habits need to be triggered. Even if a habit is an unconscious reflex, you still need a trigger for it to happen. Think about what you do and don’t want to do, and think of how you can trigger it. For instance, a daily habit you already have could be consciously, initially, lead to the new one. I often ask patients to get into the habit of taking their medication with their breakfast or their first cup of tea in the morning — where the medicine allows it, since a few common ones need to be kept away from food or tea, so it’s always worth checking with your pharmacist. Not because the tablet itself needs the food or the tea, but because pairing it with something you already do every day creates a reliable trigger, and hopefully you’ll remember to take it.

Triggers don’t discriminate between good habits and bad ones, either. I once used to see a driver at a set of traffic lights who was triggered, every single time his car stopped, to pick his nose. It’s a daft example, but it makes the point: the question is whether you’re using your triggers deliberately, or letting them control you accidentally.

If something isn’t happening, it’s probably because you’re not triggering it. Create the trigger, or piggyback your habit on another thing you do every day. Alternatively, a particular state of mind could be the trigger you need. For me, I get to work, my ‘work head’ goes on, I turn on the computer, and while it’s booting up, I write a to-do list, ring the most important thing I need to do that day, then I put the kettle on. That’s just my routine.

Reinforce the Habit

For a while, you’ll need to consciously reinforce the habit to build it, especially when you notice you’re slacking off. This re-imprints the behavioural pattern again. Reinforcing old habits is easier than building new ones. Just look at people who start smoking again, it’s like they’ve never stopped. By consciously setting a reminder, a prompt, or something on a calendar, you can reinforce the habit from time to time, which is what you’ll need to do to prevent you from going back to old ways.

The reality is that you’ll slip up. You’ll miss a day. You’ll forget. The difference between someone who builds a lasting habit and someone who gives up is what happens after the slip. Do you use it as evidence that you’re not cut out for this, or do you just get back to it the next day? The people who succeed are those who treat a missed day as an anomaly, not the end of the experiment.

Reward Yourself

Rewarding yourself is also a good way to build a habit. A positive reward is always a good driver because your brain will always try to take you from a bad place to a good place, or towards some type of pleasurable reward. Just a simple reward for positive behaviour may give your habit the momentum you need to build the inertia and make the changes you need to make. Get used to the rewards because your brain will even start telling you when you haven’t done something. The only thing I’d tell you is that the reward has to be something pleasurable. Rewards only work if they’re rewards.

Don’t reward yourself with something you hate or something that undermines the habit you’re trying to build. Rewarding yourself for going to the gym by eating an entire pizza defeats the purpose. The reward needs to be something that makes you want to do the habit again, not something that cancels out the benefit of doing it in the first place.

Replace old Habits

If you get rid of an old habit, you leave a gap where it used to be. Often, a useful way to build a good habit is to replace the gap left by the old one. Replacing works really well for two reasons. Because the triggers are already set, all you need to do is attach those old triggers to the new habits instead — this is Charles Duhigg’s cue-routine-reward loop, and his Golden Rule of Habit Change, and you can probably see that I’ve cobbled it in here directly: keep the same cue and the same reward, and just change the routine that sits between them. Also, if you do replace an old habit to fill the gap, there’s no room for the old habit to creep back in.

One word of warning, though. Don’t replace a bad habit with one that’s equally bad. Think of all of those smokers who put on weight when they stop smoking, just because they need to put something in their mouths. They’ve replaced one bad habit with another. The trigger’s the same, the behaviour’s the same, only the substance has changed. That’s not progress, that’s just lateral movement between problems.

Habitual Inertia is what I call the process of building good habits that just keep running your life in the background and continue to move you forward. These are the habits that compound over time, build momentum, and create the inertia you need to make real, lasting change. Not dramatic habits. Not impressive habits. Just simple, consistent, daily habits that add up over months and years to transform your life completely.

Most people underestimate the power of small habits because they can’t see the immediate results. They want the dramatic transformation, the overnight success, the miraculous change. But that’s not how it works. Habits are boring. They’re repetitive. They’re unglamorous. But they’re also one of the only things that works in the long run.

You won’t notice much difference after a day. You probably won’t notice much after a week. But after a month, you’ll start to see something. After six months, other people will start to notice. After a year, you’ll be a different person. Not because you did something dramatic, but because you did something small every single day without fail.

‘What’s the simplest thing you can do every day that will make what you want happen?’ Answer that question. Pick one thing. Make it so simple it feels almost pointless. Then do it every single day. Build the repetition. Build the consistency. Make it easy. Create triggers. Reinforce it. Reward it. Replace bad habits with good ones.

That’s Habitual Inertia. That’s how you build momentum. That’s how you create change that lasts. Not through willpower or motivation or dramatic gestures. Through simple, boring, consistent habits that just keep running in the background, moving you forward even when you’re not thinking about it. Especially when you’re not thinking about it.