Countless studies have shown that you can't develop more than one habit at a time. It seems that trying to do too many habits at one time just ensures that all habits are most likely to fail.
It can be like building a house of cards in the wind. By trying to do too much, you increase the difficulty of the entire process greatly bringing the whole shebang crashing down.
If you want a better life, then the best thing to do is to make small, incremental changes on a daily basis.
With that in mind, I'm pushing myself to develop or change one habit every single month.
This is a part of a series called the “30 Day Habit Challenge“. Each month, I'll try to make one improvement and then report back with the results.
To get started, I recommend you read this overview of the 30 Day Habit Challenge.
After that, check out these individual blog posts where I talk about my successes and failures with habit development:
- Develop a Daily Morning Routine [January 2013]
- Minimize Consumption of Soft Drinks and Beer [February 2013]
- Read 30 Minutes of Nonfiction Books Every Day [March 2013]
- The Daily “Positive Thought” Habit [April 2013]
- Write 75,000 Words in a Single Month [May 2013]
- Track Three Different Bad Habit Triggers [June 2013]
- Stop Using Curse Words [July 2013]
- Walk 10,000 Steps a Day [August 2013]
- Network with One Person Per Day [September to October 2013]
- No Fast Food or Takeout Food [November 2013]
- Practice Daily “Inbox Zero” [December 2013]
- Record every thought and idea in Evernote [January 2014]
Note: since 2014 I have stopped doing “official” habit challenges and writing about them directly.
However, I am still constantly doing habit challenges in my personal life and I do often indirectly write about these challenges and what I learn in many of my posts. I just no longer do a monthly writeup like I did when I started this self-improvement blog.
A big part of the 30 Day Habit Challenge is YOU. While I can write about my experiences with habit challenges, it's up to you to take action. I urge you to create your own habit challenges. Each month set a goal for yourself and push yourself to make that change.
[Want more ideas for trying your own habit change challenges? Check out this brand new (as of Sept 2019) post on 30-Day Habit Challenge Ideas to get some inspiration for creating your own personal challenges.]