There are two laws in the universe: Gravity, and the “80/20 Rule.”
In case you’re not familiar with the 80/20 Rule, it states that “Eighty percent of all results will come from 20% of all the effort.” In other words, if you have ever worked on a committee with 10 people, 80% of the work was done by 2 of the people.
How does this apply to habit change?
Habits are triggered by events, such as we eat (habit) because we’re stressed (event). To change your habits, you need to change how you handle the event. To change how you handle the event, you need to identify your triggers.
Here’s the good news.
The 80/20 rule tells us that we do not need to identify every single triggering event in our lives. If we identify the 20% of triggers that cause us the most trouble, we’ll fix our habit 80% of the time.
Fix your habit 80% of the time and you’re moving forward at incredible speed!
If you’re serious about changing your habits…
- Make a list of what triggers you to do your habit. (It will most likely be shorter than you think.)
- Pick the 20% that happen most often, which will probably be 2 or 3 triggers.
- Come up with a plan to deal with those few.
- Enjoy the success.
You don’t need to change everything, just what matters.
The results will be obvious and immediate.
Leave a Reply