This year, after diving into Pinterest’s ideas on bullet journaling, I discovered an engaging technique for developing a cleaning habit: habit tracking.
I designed my habit tracker like a game board, where each daily cleaning task resembled a unique Tetris piece. Every evening, I would draw and color in the pieces corresponding to the chores I’d completed that day. After five weeks of coloring my board nightly, I was convinced that I would finally achieve my dream of maintaining a perpetually clean home.
According to habit research, I was on the right path. I created a game to provide myself with external motivation until the new habit could establish itself. Consistently performing this routine each night was supposed to lead me closer to my goal.
However, I now find myself in a messy home, and my board has gone untouched since March.
It seems that achieving a goal can be extremely challenging, even when you lay the groundwork for success through habit formation. This struggle is often attributed to something known as “habit boredom,” which dulls the positive emotional response toward an activity once it becomes routine.
Here’s what to understand about how habit boredom can hinder your progress just when you think you are making strides toward your goals.
Grasping Habit Boredom
Establishing beneficial habits has long been regarded as a crucial step towards goal achievement. Research indicates that about 40% of daily actions are executed habitually. Developing positive habits—like tidying up, preparing a work lunch daily, and drinking water before meals—can help ensure your actions align with your ambitions for a tidier home, better financial habits, and improved well-being.
The challenge arises when you intentionally craft a new habit, which elicits an emotional reaction. For instance, at the start of your lunch-preparation routine, you might feel a sense of pride in your money-saving efforts. Look at you, implementing a finance-friendly habit! You can feel accomplished as you calculate your savings from those homemade lunches.
However, by day 17, that emotional high likely diminishes. The process of habit formation can desensitize your emotional response, making the once-novel task feel tedious. Consequently, when you are contemplating whether to prepare your lunch, the excitement fades as it transforms into just another Tuesday.
When coworkers suggest trying out a new taco truck, the diminished emotional attachment to your lunch-preparing routine likely makes it easier to let your sandwich sit neglected in the fridge while you indulge in tacos.
Overcoming Habit Boredom
A significant part of the struggle with habit boredom is that you might not even realize it’s why you’re drifting away from your newfound routine. It may feel reasonable to skip a day due to fatigue, hunger, or busyness, believing it won’t impact your habit.
However, habit boredom can lead to resistance against maintaining your regular brown bag lunches, and once you miss the first day, the likelihood of repeating that on subsequent days increases.
Fortunately, there are strategies to prevent habit boredom from derailing your progress:
Find Joy in the Mundane
James Clear, a habit and productivity expert, writes in his book Atomic Habits that those who excel at goal-setting find ways to appreciate the monotony of their habits. For instance, aspiring Olympic athletes spend countless hours on repetitive drills, and those who can enjoy the tedium are more likely to succeed than those who view their training as a chore.
So, how can you learn to embrace boredom?
- Combine your dull habit with something exciting. Attaching an enjoyable element to your new habit can help maintain your motivation even when it loses its novelty. For example, if you’re committed to your lunch-prepping habit, consider using colorful containers, cutting your sandwiches into fun shapes, or experimenting with new recipes and snacks you this want to try.
- Team up with a friend. It’s well-known that exercise feels more enjoyable with a companion, and the same goes for any monotonous habit. If you’re striving for a money-saving habit, partner with someone who’s also trying to develop a new habit. Supporting each other can help both of you stay motivated when habit boredom challenges arise.
Cultivate a Process-Oriented Mindset
We often establish new habits with specific goals in mind. However, habit boredom may lead to feelings of failure if it sets in before you achieve your objective.
When you concentrate solely on the end goal—be it a tidier home, financial improvement, or better health—you might find yourself questioning, “Can I achieve this?” Instead, adopting the question “How do I accomplish this?” promotes a problem-solving approach that assumes success is attainable.
This shift toward process orientation, which emphasizes the methodology behind your habits, is more likely to lead to accomplishment. Embracing the principle that “there are no failures, only ineffective solutions” can help maintain your momentum.
If habit boredom causes you to abandon your new routine, there’s no need to believe you’ll never achieve your goal. You simply need to reassess your approach to find what might work better. When you encourage yourself to understand why something isn’t producing the desired outcome, you increase the likelihood of discovering a solution rather than giving up altogether. (See also: Habits Aren’t Dull—They’re the Key to Happiness. Here’s Why.)
The Dual Nature of Habits
Becoming habitual can significantly aid your journey toward achieving goals, provided you are intentional in your approach. However, it’s important to remember that we, as humans, are not machines that can be programmed and left unattended.
We must continuously adjust our habits, satisfy our need for novelty and motivation, and understand that goal attainment is a journey involving numerous challenges.
Regrettably for me, this means that not even a meticulously crafted bullet journal Tetris board can fully overcome the issue of habit boredom. (See also: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Transform Your Habits and Your Life)
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