Slow Growth
My new approach to habit building.
I’ve taken somewhat of a break from life these past few months, but I haven’t been inactive. In my downtime I’ve been focusing on building lasting habits, but with a different approach to usual. It’s been working very well, Alhamdulillah (praise and thanks to god).
Today I want to share my framework for long term habit building. It’s something I think we should all be giving some attention to. Everything we do is based on habit so it makes sense to work on them.
In the new year, I used to get excited from the novelty of new year new me energy and oversubscribe to doing a million different things. A few weeks later I’d hit a wall when I realise I can’t make such a substantial change so quickly. That’s why this year I took a much slower approach.
Since the start of the year, I’ve been building 1 new habit per month. Just 1.
I took inspiration from Matt D’Avella - my favourite YouTuber who does 30-day challenges where he tries out meditation, yoga, breathwork, journaling and more for 30 days each.
Giving 30 days for each habit is plenty of time to really get it ingrained into your daily life before moving on to the next one. Using the months as ‘fresh starts’ is also quite satisfying.
January - Fitness
In January I aimed to build a regular fitness habit. Whether it’s walking, football, the gym or Yoga I tried to make it a habit to exercise 4-5 times per week. Fast forward to March and I can honestly say it’s made such an impact. I’ve never been so consistent with exercise before in my life. Taking 1 whole month to focus on this really made a difference.
February - Sleep & Routine
In February I tried to maintain a regular sleep, evening and morning routine. I didn’t master this but I made a lot of progress from late nights to somewhat of a regular routine.
My morning routine has been pretty consistent → Wake up, shower, brush teeth, get dressed, skincare, toast & a warm drink, study, big breakfast, gym. It almost happens automatically at this point.
March - Studying
In March my aim is to get into a regular study habit for my upcoming exams from April-June. I’m aiming to complete 1-2 hours of flashcards in the morning and clock in 4-6 hours of focused work per day (with breaks).
There’s a lot of work to go through.
So far things are going well. Having a good exercise routine and a sleep schedule has made this habit A LOT easier to build. I’ve also been making to-do lists every single day for a good few weeks now and that has given so much structure to my day.
April - Ramadan
In April it will be Ramadan (Islamic month of fasting). My aim next month is going to be to focus on the religious aspects of my life; giving to charity, praying, building character and gratitude.
The Rules
I don't have any rules. Although I’m sticking to the 1 habit per month strategy, if a habit requires more than a month then so be it. My sleep routine isn’t 100% yet so I’ll be giving that some attention through March alongside studying.
If I need to, I’ll revisit some of my older habits again in the future so I can fine-tune them.
My favourite thing about this new approach is that you only have to focus on 1 thing at a time. As long as you build the initial habits properly, they won’t need much attention to keep going. At this point exercising and sleeping on time is just a part of my life because I worked through the hardest parts in January and February for those. Now it’s all about showing up every day.
I would recommend starting with health-related habits like exercise, diet and sleep before diving into the other ones. Sleep, diet and exercise impact your energy levels and therefore your productivity. So whatever you set out to do, it’s probably best that these are in check before you start out.
If you enjoyed this post, I’d recommend reading this detailed post on how to build habits from last year.
Until next week ✌🏾