Struggling to make good habits stick? Try this:
Don’t optimize for perfection.
Optimize for “good enough.”
“Good enough” is where sustainable progress happens.
It’s the mindsets and behaviors you can keep up for weeks, months, and even years.
In other words, good enough enables consistency, and consistency enables results.
As the very-wise Brian Barthelt reminded me the other week, momentum is a powerful thing – and momentum is best maintained by being “good enough” as consistently as you can for as long as you can.
So, how can you start optimizing for “good enough?” Try this:
Pick a Goal. Any goal will do, but I’m partial to one that’s related to improving your health and lowering your stress (and if you need personalized support and accountability, I can help – send me an email). Let’s say your goal is to start taking a daily 30 minute walk.
Then, think about some Skills that you either have or need to build in order to reach that goal. For your daily walk goal, the skill you need is time management. Daily walks won’t happen unless we make the time; making time happens when you effectively manage your time.
After that, figure out how to practice a small, daily Action to help you build that skill. This is something that you can do every day with a high degree of confidence. In the case of practicing effective time management to build your daily walking habit, this small daily action could be a 5 minute calendar review in the morning, so you can book time each day for your walk.
Now, once you have your Goal, Skill, and small daily Action outlined, ask yourself…
“How confident am I on a scale of 1 to 10 that I can do my small, daily action every day for the next 2 weeks?”
If you’re anything LESS than a 9 or 10 out of 10 confident… make your small daily action even EASIER to do.
If you can’t do 5 minutes… can you do 3? How about 1?
If 30 minutes is too long for your daily walk, can you do 20 minutes? 15 minutes?
In the end, you want your small daily action to be SO easy that you could do it even on your worst days.
Therein lies the magic of optimizing for “good enough.”
When you make healthy lifestyle practices so easy that you can do them consistently for a LONG time – even on your worst days – you build the momentum that countless people around the world WISH they had.
Hope this helps. Now, go be good enough this week.
If you need some support in building your own Goal, Skill, and daily Action plan, reach out and let’s walk through it together.
Love you lots,
❤️ Ian
P.S. Here’s a photo from my “good enough” home workout the other week. I had a busy week, but that wasn’t going to stop me from breaking my workout goal down to something I could fit in no matter what. 😉
Ian Estabrook 