13. EXTRA: Technique for establishing positive habits

In this bonus episode, I share with you a proven, evidence-based technique for embedding positive behaviours in your life: the establishing of habits.In this bonus mini-episode of Becoming Übermensch, we explore the art of forming positive habits through the lens of Nietzschean self-overcoming and modern behavioural science. Nietzsche wrote that “the body is a great wisdom”—so how do we train it well? You’ll learn a simple but powerful routine to help you hardwire exercise into your daily life, reduce friction, and build momentum towards becoming who you are. The mind loves to wander—but the body loves routine. Train it right, and it’ll take care of business while your mind stays in bed.

Transcript

“Making plans and conceiving projects involves many agreeable sentiments. He that had the strength to be nothing but a contriver of plans all his life would be a happy man. But one must occasionally have a rest from this activity by carrying a plan into execution, and then comes anger and sobriety.” (OAM.85)

Hi folks. I thought I’d chuck you an extra mini-episode this week, and a practical one. This podcast series is not a course but it is about practical Nietzschean philosophy for life, so I want to share with you some useful techniques occasionally. Actually, I may do a course at some point so let me know if that’s something that interests you.

We all want to change our lives for the better; we want to change ourselves for the better—that’s what Nietzschean self-overcoming is. How are those changes effected? Equipped with the insights of Nietzsche’s psychological philosophy and the proven techniques of evidence-based behaviour change, the path to profound self-overcoming lies open for those who choose to commit to it. This week we’ll take a look at one such technique as an introduction to talking about the body, a topic of immense importance to Nietzsche. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he writes, ‘the body is a great wisdom’ and ‘a great intelligence’ and ‘it speaks of the meaning of the earth’. Now, real, sustainable, positive change requires positive habits. Your body likes habits. You just have to train it into them correctly. 

Human beings are creatures of habit. This has good and bad consequences. On the downside, it means that once a negative, unhealthy or self-defeating habit is embedded, it can be very difficult to dislodge. On the upside, once a virtuous habit is firmly established, one can be successful almost as if on autopilot. For example, the establishment of a positive physical activity habit is a highly-effective way of improving your health and fitness. 

Let us say you want to create the habit of going for a run in the morning before work. The principles you must try to follow are:

1. 1. Do it at precisely the same time. Mornings tend to be best because there are likely to be less competing demands on your time than later in the day.
2. 2. Follow exactly the same routine, step-by-step, each morning. 
3. 3.  Remove all ‘friction’ in advance—anything that makes it harder to get out of the door. 
4. 4. Crucially, Take all mental deliberation out of the equation. The idea here is eliminate as much thinking as possible.
5. 5. Preparation is paramount. Do all your preparation, all your thinking, in advance. In this case, the evening before you run when your motivation will likely be much higher than it will be in the morning. 

Ready for when you wake up, have your running clothes laid out, shoes with laces undone ready for your feet to slip into them. If you drink coffee or tea, have it ready to brew, cup on the counter. If you like to listen to music or entertainment while exercising, make sure your device is charged and loaded with your chosen media content. Have your house keys at hand and keep them in the exact same place in your home all the time, fill a water bottle, maybe even have some healthy and enticing breakfast items prepared for when you return from your run. Line them up on the kitchen table. Little things are important here. You must follow precisely the same procedure every time. At first, it might be useful to have a written list to help you memorise the routine. 

Humans tend to follow the path of least resistance so you must make it as easy as possible to do the right thing and hard as possible to do the wrong thing. For example, if you tend to hit the snooze button repeatedly when you awake, place your alarm clock in the next room or far away enough that you have to get out of bed to turn it off. Once out of bed, it is harder to just idly drifting off to sleep again. 

Follow each step of your routine with the greatest possible fidelity. The idea is not to think too much—or at all! Your mind is of no help here—shut it down. This is not an exercise in willpower. If you have to stop and think, that becomes an opportunity for unhelpful rationalising thoughts – it’s raining out, it’s too cold, I didn’t sleep very well, I’m not hydrated, my knee hurts, I’ll start tomorrow instead, etc. etc. Any glitch or hindrance in the smooth process you are trying to create is an opportunity for failure. Not being able to locate your earphones, for example, or not being able to find any clean socks: these little obstacles create friction and reduce the chances of you fulfilling your good intention. This is why preparation is absolutely paramount.

This formula doesn’t guarantee success; behaviour change it is a matter of probabilities. Consider it this way: let’s say not being able to find your earphones reduces your motivation by 15%, or discovering you have no clean socks reduces your motivation by 12%, or, alternatively, the fact you can see that there’s a beautiful sunrise occurring outside increases your motivation 21%, or you have a new podcast on your device you are really looking forward to increases your motivation 8%, or the dirty dishes from last night’s dinner are still in the sink and you should really sort those out—motivation reduced 28%—ah yes, the infamous procrastination phenomenon of “displacement”. There’s a critical mass of motivation you have to attain and maintain to successfully execute your run. Anything that increases the chances of success is to be implemented and reinforced; anything that decreases those chances must be eliminated ahead of time—so, you know, wash those dishes the night before.

The same principle of friction-reduction can be applied to any activity, any chore, or even a creative project like writing a book. Have a routine, a process, a habit, a ritual almost. Do the same things in the same order at the same time each time. As you continue to embed your habit, you will discover opportunities to refine your routine, making it smoother and more logical. Perhaps, while your coffee is brewing, you can spend a few minutes stretching (and even this stretching should have its own set sequence of moves; its own routine). Efficiency is a kind of beauty.

Some might object that living in this way is tedious, following the self-same behaviours over and over, like a robot. Firstly, it should be noted that progress in just about anything requires repetition. How many times must a sprinter run that same hundred metres to break a world record? More importantly, that this kind of routine is tedious is a misconception. The behaviours that we enshrine in routines are already in themselves pretty unexciting. Life does not become more interesting just because you can’t find your house keys; quite the opposite. By creating habits, we ensure the tiresome or repetitive activities of life do not overly tax us, stealing our time and cluttering our minds. If you have your positive habits efficiently locked in, that frees up time for other things—for other adventures! And you can enjoy that wonderful feeling of satisfaction because you’ve successfully completed all your practices, disciplines, and chores for the day.

And consider this: with many habits, when your body integrates it, it leaves the mind free to think about other things. Have you ever noticed that you tend to have good ideas in the shower?—that this is the case is almost a cliche. Why would this be? Well, showering is an activity you have engaged in hundreds, probably thousands of times, and in all likelihood you probably follow the same process every time. Whether you are aware of it or not, you likely wash and dry your body in the same sequence. Your body has already learned this routine and this leaves your mind free to wander: hence you have time and space to imagine and perhaps have new ideas. When you fail to follow your usual showering routine, your mind is drawn back to the task at hand, making it more clumsy and laborious, and there is even a chance that you might miss something—, so maybe forgetting to wash one of your feet, for instance. 

Good habits are effective and efficient, reducing effort and error. Execute your new routine half a dozen times and you will find it gets easier and easier. Do it fifty times and your body will learn the routine to the point that your mind can occupy itself with other matters whilst your body gets what needs to be done done. In the end, when you go for your morning run, it is almost as if your mind can stay in bed! Your body likes routines; it craves them. Train it well and it will take care of them for you.

Success is self-reinforcing. When you perceive you are making progress, it can spur you on to work harder and thereby a “virtuous cycle” is established. You start to enjoy the hard work involved in becoming stronger because you can see it is paying dividends. Pride in your successes is to be encouraged but benefits may not be apparent for some time, so it is important to establish your exercise habits as life changes, valuable in themselves, not mere means to some end. 

Failing to establish your exercise habit can have the opposite effect, plunging you into a “vicious cycle” of self-sabotage: you fail, you get depressed about it and so to cheer yourself up, you eat, drink, and watch TV, intensifying your sense of inadequacy and making the whole situation worse. This propensity towards reinforcement, positive or negative, is something to be aware of, and so it is important to try and build momentum in a positive direction early. Remember this: every time you go for that run, you strengthen your habit making you more likely to keep it up; every time you fail to go for that run, you weaken your habit, making further lapses more likely, perhaps leading, eventually, to a complete collapse of your habit. 

Here’s Nietzsche from the JS:

“The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation : - that would be my banishment and my Siberia” 

GS. 295

Your body is a kind of machine. Machines have routines. What are your body’s routines? In other words, what habits have you chosen for yourself?

Until next time, live dangerously.