#9 building consistency by being adaptable

adaptability could be a missing ingredient in building healthy habits

Lately, I have been working on improving my cardiovascular fitness by going for runs at least once every week. I started this six weeks ago and have been consistently doing it every week — haven't missed it even a single time! :)

Similarly, there are other things that are part of my daily routine which I have been doing for the past few months or years — such as waking up early in the morning, reading books, going for walks every day, etc. A few days ago, I started thinking about what has helped me build these habits and make them default in my daily routine. One obvious answer was consistency — that is, doing them regularly has removed the friction of deciding every day whether I want to indulge in them or not.

I started thinking more and dug deeper to understand what has helped me be consistent for a long period of time. After thinking for a while, one answer that came to mind was that, for me, consistency is about being adaptable.

Let me explain exactly what I mean by this.

By definition, consistency is doing the same things or behaving in the same manner over a long period of time. This means always sticking to the plan without much change. But to me, this concept seems very rigid. I have noticed in real life that the longevity of doing something regularly without giving ourselves an opportunity to adjust is very, very low. In my opinion, this is one of the major reasons we are not able to build and sustain healthy habits.

One key ingredient missing in this approach is adaptability.

When it comes to unhealthy habits like drinking alcohol or smoking, people are very adaptable — to get that quick dopamine hit and activate the reward systems, people often adjust to the situation or context and find ways to do these things no matter what.

In my experience, this is something that could help build healthy habits as well.

Instead, when building healthy habits, we are all very rigid. Our decision-making is very binary — if the situation is not as we want or if we are feeling low or demotivated, we do not do the activity we intended to do. Instead, we find excuses to justify not doing it.

For example, say a person decides to go on a walk at 6a every morning. He does this for two days in a row. On the third day, he wakes up around 6:30a, and his brain immediately dismisses the idea of going for a walk just because he woke up late. Usually, the narrative in the brain is, "there is no time now since we woke up late; if we go now, we will be late for a meeting," etc. The same thing happens every time the person wakes up a little late.

This mindset of fixating on a single approach doesn’t let him to build the habit he wanted to. The person in the above example could have been consistent had he been adaptable; that is, he could have decided that whenever he wakes up late, he would go for a 10 or 15-minute walk instead of a 30-minute walk.

Hence, consistency is built when we are adaptable to the situation. We need to intentionally adjust to the context we are in and refine strategies in response to challenges to meet our goals, maintain progress, and be in alignment with our values.

Adapting to this mindset has helped me be consistent over time. And I believe, it could help anyone.

If you are looking to build a routine or a habit, I would recommend being adaptable to the situation — keep the end goal or value in mind, but adjust the approach toward achieving it.