Towards an Identity Model of Habits: Part I

My buddy James is a vegetarian.

I am not a morning person.

I’m a reader of fantasy books.

Remember those statements, ’cause I’m going to reference ’em later.

In the last few years I’ve been experimenting with various models of self improvement. Before I officially started this project I assumed that motivation was a significant catalyst for self change. After seeing it as a perennial problem (I can get psyched up for gym going starting on New Years, but it peters out pretty quickly, and the cycle repeats next year) I switched to other things.

I dabbled in gamification, because I saw its addictive properties as lowering willpower thresholds. Like motivation, it worked, but only for a while.

I’ve since focused on habits for the last two years, and though I’ve had a great deal of success, they’re only foolproof in relatively basic and linear behaviors. When things get complicated that paradigm just isn’t enough.

How are they not enough?

The linear model – what BJ Fogg advocates, of starting a Tiny Habit, reaching that hook point of automaticity, then naturally increasing difficulty, repetitions, or length of time until you achieve mastery – doesn’t seem to fully work all the time. Or rather it really falls a part when you’re pushing habits to mastery, which I see as another vector of effort (regimention/willpower and endurance/forming a habit being the other two vectors).

That vector involves plateaus in skill and the maddening frustration of constantly doing a task that is at least slightly above your current level.

It also runs into trouble when you’re dealing with families of skills. I advocate this not only because families can support each other, but in a world where time is of essence (we die, our bodies wear out), skills that have an accrual across time are necessary to start now to gain the benefits of daily minimums across time. If I start a habit of cardio 30 minutes a day, I may not master it. I might not get my goal of a six pack until I nail my eating habit. But for as long as I’m exercising, I’m accruing secondary cardio “points”.

Pushing skills in the vector of skill advancement throws a huge wrench into the equation because of habit harmonics. A dissonance starts – extra effort in one skill affects the solidity of other habits.

But the biggest problem with my current model is that it doesn’t attenuate in more complicated behaviors.

Let’s go back to the original three statements.

My buddy James is a vegetarian. When we go out and eat he avoids meat. In all scenarios. After the bars while tipsy and ordering pizza late at night, when going to a restaurant with friends with crappy vegetarian options, even in one place that had amazing pork tacos.

I do the same thing with fantasy books. It’s not as though I decide to read them – I HAVE to read them. It’s not even a choice. I need to have those few minutes before bed to scratch that itch and if I don’t have at least an option loaded on my Kindle, I start to get all itchy. The world is not right.

The inverse is important to analyze – I’m not a morning person. My waking up early is either a fluke or a deliberate preparation if I need it. Morning people are morning people because they enjoy it or they just are that way – it’s totally independent from fluctuating conditions. If they’re out late the night before, they still wake up early.

For all three – it’s an identity that’s welded in. It’s not what you do, it’s part of who you are, which not only makes it stronger, it also is able to somehow adapt incredibly well to changing conditions. Choice is also almost entirely scrubbed out of the equation.

For me this becomes an issue with eating and getting up early. All the other habits I consider foundational are easy. Working out – no problem, barring travel, it’s once a day at a certain time. Same with writing, meditating, and if I add flossing or recording finances. It’s a matter of if-then protocols – implementation intentions.

For eating that gets insanely complicated – it’s multiple times a day, across changing circumstances, etc. I believe it’s the reason I’ve had to scrap the habit several times, even when I’ve maintained it for close to a year. It just never stuck. And this is a big problem – eating is incredibly important for health, energy, and weight loss. It also has the biggest impact for whether I can socialize well later in the program – I don’t want to go out to meet people and, because of lack of willpower, blow out a previous habit of making good food decisions.

mask by 派脆客 Lee, tack by Zaheer Mohiuddin, welder by Per Hortlund

A New Plan for Habit Progressions Part 3 - A New Hope

What I’ve done for the last 38 days is work solely on 750words.

My theory is that after the a rough patch and after the midpoint, things start their inevitable slide towards automaticity - this is a theory that runs counter to Lally’s research, and is something I’ll discuss later.

My new plan was to work solely on 750 words until after the midpoint, and then start a new habit, the theory being that after the midpoint the will needed to sustain a task becomes less and less. Two tasks overlap, but in the best way possible. The starting task is easy for a bit, and the previous task is approaching automaticity and taking less willpower.

I feel the change in 750 words now. I’ve streamlined the process using the book Self-Discipline in 10 Days and pegged it to a specific time i.e. as soon as I get up in the morning. I’ve taken the Automaticity Index questionnaire and it seems to corroborate my feelings - it is on it’s way to becoming a habit.

I chose working out as my next habit - specifically doing some form of kettlebell workout right after I finish my 750 words - and I started Day 1 this morning. This will be a long one - I’ve pegged it at a 125 day midpoint with an estimated 250 days before it becomes a habit. I’ll be streamlining the process like 750 words, and I’ll be taking notes on how much willpower it takes, it’s automaticity by taking the questionnaire, and how it interacts with my previous habit in the making. I’ll also be using fitocracy and a Google docs spreadsheet to keep track of it.

A New Plan for Habit Progressions Part 2 - Assessing Tasks

So I’m going to just attempt a rough estimate to peg ½ points of automaticity based on difficulty. I’ll divide my tasks into 3 levels
Easy - Reading (Goodreads), Daily meditation, flossing
Medium - Khan Academy course, Duolingo, 750 words
Difficult - Working out, eating right, not drinking alcohol or coffee, music

Flossing is a simple task, reading is something I like and do regularly anyways, and daily meditation is itself very simple and takes very little time.

Courses tend to take more energy from me - especially if they require homework, and 750 words though is enjoyable, sometimes takes a long time depending on the day

Working out is difficult even according to Lally’s data, as is eating right over time. Alcohol and coffee are such an easy thing to indulge in here and there because it tends to be cemented with socializing.

Two things I didn’t include are social events and quantifying my finances. Socializing is hard to start off, and I think it should be left until the end, especially since it’s often difficult to eat right - so it should be done after automaticity is achieved with that. And Finances….I have no idea how difficult that will be especially since initially it would be just a matter of observing my finances, not doing anything about them. So roughly speaking, I’ll rate the actions from 1 (easiest) to 10, then roughly rate the number of days to reach automaticity, and then half it.

Flossing - 1 - 18 days - 9 day midpoint
Reading - 2 - 30 days - 15 day midpoint
Meditation - 3 - 40 days - 20 day midpoint
Finances - 3 - 40 days - 20 day midpoint
750 - 4 - 50 - 25 day midpoint
Duolingo - 5 - 66 - 33 day midpoint
Khan Academy -  5 - 66 - 33 day midpoint
Music - 7 - 100 - 50 day midpoint
Not drinking coffee/alcohol - 10 - 250 - 125 day midpoint
Working out - 10 - 250 - 125 day midpoint
Eating Right - 10 - 250 - 125 day midpoint
Socializing - ?

I’ll have to take into account that these numbers may change as I evaluate them with the automaticity index.

A New Plan for Habit Progressions Part 1

So in light of feeling the brunt of all these attempts at habit formation, I’ve stepped back and tried to look at a better plan based on all the stuff I’ve been reading.

So here’s my theoretical framework: If self discipline is one deplete-able resource, and if automaticity is when an action approaches an asymptote of 0 willpower, then the best way is to have a slowly unfolding progression of new actions taking over as the first action slides towards that asymptote.

For example, if drinking a glass of water before breakfast takes 18 days to form into a habit, then I’d want to start another habit at some point past the mid point where the slide to full automaticity is underway.

I’m assuming, perhaps erroneously, that tasks take a certain amount of willpower on day 1, and start getting harder as the “streak” of sustaining the habit continues as days go by. This certainly is true for my own personal attempts. Going to the gym is easy on day 1 or 2, but it gets more and more difficult to continue the streak of days (obviously there are some random days where it’s more or less difficult).

Given the above, and given that different tasks take different amounts of times to reach automaticity, then it makes sense to start Habit 1 until the midpoint of automaticity, then start Habit 2 until it reaches ITS UNIQUE midpoint, etc. This way the process of automaticity itself shoulders the brunt of sustained will - rather than how I’ve been doing it now - which is simply adding tasks 1 week later regardless of their difficulty or willpower expenditure.

So now the question is, how do you establish midpoints? I do not want to test each task, so what I’ll do is ball park it using Lally’s experiment - I’m assuming that tasks that take the least willpower will take the quickest to form into habits and the ones that take more will take longer.

So with Lally’s data, I can estimate that easier tasks will take 18 days, middle of the range will take 66 days, and the most difficult will take 250 days - I’ll divide each to peg the midpoint, and estimate the variations between tasks that I’ve already labeled as Easy, Medium, and Difficult.

Notes on Experimentation

Lally’s experiments on self-discipline got me thinking about experiments I could possibly perform on the subject. Here are a few thoughts:

1. If there is an automaticity index, is there a happiness or willpower index? If not, is it possible to com up with them?

2. Does mood affect willpower? It seems like it does given my experience with the effect of humorous videos on ego-depletion.

3. According to Lally’s study, different actions take different amounts of time to develop into habits - Do actions that take less willpower to develop automaticity take an equal amount of time to lose automaticity? Or Do they take more time?

4. What other actions rejuvenate willpower?

5. Does relaxation affect willpower?

6. What is an optimal willpower workout?

7. How many actions are optimal for habit formation? Given 6 actions that have a similar “will power” and automaticity value, how many actions are “stackable” - what is the likelyhood that 2 vs 6 actions will achieve full automaticity.

8. Is there an automaticity constant that can be derived from specific actions? If automaticity can be mapped, and if will can be mapped, then shouldn’t there be a value derived for willpower and automaticity for a given action?

9. Do actions that rejuvenate ego-depletion have the same affect or do they diminish? Can I exert willpower, then rejuvenate willpower, and repeat ad infinitum? Or does each rejuvenation yield fewer and fewer “willpower points?

These are all rather vague notions, but I think it’s important to note them so that they can be examined in detail later.