Changing behavior is hard. Whenever we seek to add a new habit, we need to think ahead about where we might fall short. Call this the pre postmortem. You write out all of the different reasons why your new habit might not stick.
Say you’re trying to start writing a daily journal. There are countless reasons why that habit wouldn’t work out. You’re going to forget to do it, you’re not going to have time, you’re not going to have anything to write, you’re not going to want to do the work.
We can mitigate these risks ahead of time and think of ways around them.
Some great strategies are:
- Make it a daily habit so you don’t forget
- Set aside a consistent time, or make your habit a part of an existing daily routine
- Do your habit in public so you have people keeping you accountable
Next time, before you try to add a new habit, make sure you’ve written your pre postmortem. The more we can foresee all these shortcomings, the better chance at success we have!