Habits Need Consistency AND Flexibility

When it comes to building habits there are two practices we need to focus on which are consistency and more importantly something that's often overlooked; flexibility.

Consistency is important when establishing new habits, but there is also a danger of being too rigid. Researchers Katy Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania and economist John Beshears of the Harvard School of Business, learned this lesson when they worked with Google on how to get the company’s employees to exercise more at the on-site gym.

The study split 2,500 employees into two groups: one that received a reward if they went to the gym every day at the same time for a month and another that received a reward for working out every day, regardless of the time of day.

The researchers believed that the group with stricter guidelines would build stronger habits. That’s not what happened. In reality, when people in that group weren’t able to go at their designated time, they ended up not going at all. Those in the other group just found another time. Forty weeks later, people in the group that had more flexibility were still exercising more often than the others.

This is a fascinating finding and just shows how important flexibility really is when it comes to building habits. So if you're finding yourself setting yourself up to a rigid schedule with your habits, try to be a little more flexible. That's not to say don't do the action at all, but maybe perform the habit at a different time, for slightly less time or perhaps tweak the habit (if you can't physically go out for that 30 minute run today, do a 20 minute home workout instead).