Motivation: The Primary Adversary of Habit Formation

Motivation can be your greatest hurdle when establishing new habits. This is not due to a lack of motivation but rather an excess at the beginning of a new endeavor.

Often, you embark on a new activity driven by inspiration from an external source. Bursting with motivation, you may dive into advanced Python or tackle intricate projects, dedicating hours each day. However, as days pass, that initial enthusiasm wanes, leaving you reliant on self-discipline to sustain the new behavior. Unfortunately, self-discipline rarely supports hours of coding daily, opting instead for the comfort of distractions like binge-watching Netflix.

Habits that are initiated by temporary motivation are likely to falter.

Motivation is fleeting, and our emotions are ever-changing. Relying on short-lived inspiration as your guide can lead to failure. To make a habit an essential, unbreakable part of your life, you need a compelling reason to maintain it.

Misconceptions About "Progress"

Many individuals hold a flawed perception of what constitutes progress.

There’s a common belief that substantial efforts are necessary for new behaviors to yield positive changes. In today's digital age, where countless distractions vie for our attention, starting a new routine abruptly, even for an hour, can be unrealistic.

Consider this: can you genuinely envision yourself committing to three new habits for an hour daily over several months? I would wager that you wouldn’t even manage a five-day streak.

This is why it’s crucial to redefine your understanding of progress before adopting a new habit.

Progress isn’t measured by the hours invested but by the number of consecutive days you can maintain your commitment.

Five Minutes for Remarkable Outcomes

After years of failing to stick to New Year’s resolutions, I discovered that commencing with small, manageable steps is the most effective way to build momentum and maintain a streak for a new habit.

When you hear the advice to “start small,” it’s easy to misinterpret how small that should be. If your previous idea of progress involved hours, you might think that 30 minutes is a small start, which, as we discussed, is too demanding for the fragile self-discipline characteristic of modern life.

Even if you begin with less than 30 minutes, increasing your commitment too quickly can lead to early abandonment.

This year, I made a resolution list and committed to each for just five minutes daily. Initially, the challenge was to quiet the motivating voice urging me to do more. While I was capable of extending my efforts, I knew that maintaining that pace would be unsustainable.

As expected, once the New Year’s excitement faded, my motivation dwindled, but I successfully maintained all ten habits for nearly 90 days—an achievement I had never accomplished before.

My strategy involved starting with five minutes daily from January 1 (or even 2.5 minutes for particularly tedious tasks, like mastering system design) and increasing by 2.5 minutes each Monday.

This approach proved to be extremely effective! By the end of 12 weeks, I reached a daily commitment of 30 minutes for most habits.

After 4-6 weeks, these habits became such a natural part of my routine that I felt confident in increasing my daily target by five or even ten minutes weekly (one habit now takes 85 minutes each day). I have no intention of abandoning them anytime soon.

A Safety Net for Self-Discipline

When tackling a task you find unpleasant (which is often the case with habits), your self-discipline may perceive it as an overwhelming challenge.

As a result, it will look for excuses to avoid the task or suggest less demanding, albeit less productive, activities such as chores or watching YouTube tutorials. This phenomenon is often referred to as "productive procrastination."

However, by setting a five-minute timer on your phone, you create a safety net for yourself. Since the task is only five minutes long, you’re motivated to simply get started.

Little does your self-discipline realize that this small commitment can lead to hours of productive work without complaints.

It’s akin to taming a fierce animal with treats.

Moreover, once those five minutes are over, you’ll find it easier to continue because starting small eliminates the most significant barrier—getting started.

So, if you find yourself in a rhythm, don’t stop. Just remember that you’ve accomplished your daily goal the moment the timer goes off.

You can outsmart your self-discipline, but be clever about it. Avoid raising any suspicions; it should always feel it can end the next day after just five minutes.

Ah, Momentum

When you successfully maintain a week-long streak across multiple habits, you build momentum—a type that brings motivation rather than depleting it.

Utilizing a habit tracker is essential when cultivating habits in this manner. While you could jot down your habits in a notebook, having a visual reminder that you see throughout the day is far more effective.

I utilize the "Not Boring Habits" app (not affiliated), which provides widgets for my iPhone. Although I keep my home screen free of apps, I can see the 7-day progress of all my habits with satisfying check marks as soon as I unlock my phone (which I do frequently).

To enhance your commitment to new habits, you can create a sense of false momentum. Check off the last six days on your habit tracker and display it prominently on your screen. This will add pressure to complete your five minutes, as you won’t want to disrupt the streak.

But isn’t that just cheating? Who cares? It’s your life, and you’ll forget about any perceived dishonesty after a few weeks.

Essential Guidelines

Here are a few non-negotiable rules you should strictly adhere to.

First, you can miss one day, but never allow yourself to miss two consecutive days. Doing so undermines all the progress you’ve made, especially at the beginning.

On challenging days, aim to accomplish at least 20% of your daily goal to maintain your streak. The key is the deliberate act of engaging with the habit.

If you can’t even achieve that, plan to double your effort the next day. The motivation you’ve built through momentum will encourage you to complete the task and avoid breaking your perfect streak.

Make sure you don’t skip the last day of the week, as it’s essential to conclude strong before increasing your daily target.

Additionally, avoid missing two individual days, even if they aren’t consecutive, in a single week. These guidelines are crucial for establishing habits with minimal time commitments.

Embrace a New Identity, Quickly!

The final aspect of this habit-building strategy involves adopting distinct identities for each of your habits.

You don’t need to master neural networks for years to label yourself a deep learning engineer. You can adopt this identity the moment you begin learning about deep learning.

Once you associate yourself with a new identity, performing the daily tasks that align with that identity will become significantly easier.

Refrain from criticizing yourself for progressing slowly. Ignore the negative self-talk and affirm, “I am doing great” for dedicating five minutes to the task.

Say it with me. “I am doing great.” Right now.

Choosing Suitable Data Science Habits

Once you grasp this approach to habit formation, you’ll realize you possess two invaluable skills: patience and the ability to integrate any activity into your life seamlessly.

You may feel compelled to start numerous projects—endeavors you’ve postponed for years or simply tasks you’d like to pursue.

However, consider this: if you start conversing with a giraffe for 2.5 minutes daily, you may find yourself spending an hour with that giraffe six months later. Is that truly what you want?

When contemplating a new data science habit, ask yourself whether it is genuinely worthwhile. Should you really delve into R (seriously, why bother?) or explore that new Python framework?

Select a specific area within the broader field of data science, such as data analysis or machine learning (it’s challenging to pursue both simultaneously). For instance, if you opt for machine learning, you can create multiple interconnected habits that will contribute to your growth as a well-rounded ML engineer:

• Mathematics
• Statistics
• Advanced Python
• Scikit-learn
• Model deployment
• ML systems design
• SQL

And so on.

While you might not see immediate results, give it three months. You’ll be astounded by how fundamentally your life has transformed.

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