Reflection by Medhaj Athilkar

I've been reflecting lately on how one can easily build multiple good habits and I've come to the realization that it involves thinking in systems. Taking a step back, my obsession with habit building started at the start of the pandemic. For most of my life I've been out of shape, and I wanted to effectively use the numerous hours I was going to spend at home. So what I did was I downloaded the Nike Training Club app to help me build a workout routine and I started doing their workouts.

One fine morning, as I was getting ready to work out, I received a notification on the app. It said something along the lines of "Congratulations! You've been working out for 6 months straight!". Reading that notification incited a full mix of emotions, I was happy, proud, and quite frankly surprised. I was surprised because it didn't feel like I was working out for 6 months. This got me thinking, how can I similarly build other good habits in a painless way. And now coming back to what I started this reflection with i.e. habit building involves thinking in systems. What I realized was that the only reason I was able to work out consistently was because I dedicated a specific time block for it. During that time (usually 8-9am), I would do nothing else other than working out. As long as I carved out specific time blocks during my day, it didn't matter what habit I put within that time block, as long as I was consistently honoring that time block, I would build the habit that time block was dedicated to. If my previous words were a little convoluted, let me use an example. If I dedicated 9-10AM every morning for "learning", it didn't matter what specific learning-related activity (e.g. learning python) I did during that block, as long as I honoured that time block I would be successful in building that habit (in this case a habit of learning).