Day 9: Momentum Law of Habits

January 9, 2021

In just nine days, I’m beginning to see some changes. The biggest change is not the weight, the blood pressure, or my waistline. Those are even not the most important(for now). The biggest and most important change for me is the instilling of good habits.

Let’s start with the small habits. Flossing every day. For much of my life, I have never been a consistent flosser. While I brush my teeth every day(like everyone), I rarely flossed. The only time I would floss is when I ate something and it stuck in my mouth. And the other time I floss is when I feel my gums getting inflamed or sensistive(probably from not flossing!). I would then freak out and floss religiously for a few days then stop when my gums stop being sensitive. This start and stop of flossing is not a great way to create a consistent habit. Even something as small as flossing,which really only takes a few minutes to do, was very hard for me to be consistent. This is because I had NO habit building muscles to speak of.

Before my committment to good habits, this habit seems so difficult to be consistent. There were always excuses. It’s too late at night to floss. I’m too tired to floss. My gums feel fine. My teeth feels clean.

Just to let you know, I’ve been flossing consistently every single day RIGHT after I finished brushing my teeth. It’s what I called the bundling effect. If I bundle flossing with brushing then it becomes automatic. Every single day that we repeat a habit(good or bad) that habit becomes easier.

Newton’s First Law of Motion says that an object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by a net external force.

My Momentum Law of Habits is as follows:

“A habit at rest will stay at rest, a habit in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by a new habit.” — Peter Chen

This applies to both good and bad habits. Just habits in general. A habit can die too(or stay at rest) if you don’t attend to it. What we want is bad habits to die and good habits to THRIVE. For some people, it might be eating too much, drinking, smoking, constant social media checking, not drinking enough water, gambling, wasting time, porn, spending money they do not have, etc. If we keep feeding the bad habits they will gain momentum and continue in motion.

We’ve all been down this road. The bad habits for each of us might be different. We’ve all tried hard to crush them with varying degrees of success. Sometimes we continue to do the bad habits just because we’ve been doing it so long and we feel like we can’t even stop. There’s no point. It’s a compulsion at this stage.

But a bad habit can be stop when there’s a new habit. A change in direction. A change in momentum.

But let me tell you it is POSSIBLE. Start small. And focus one day at a time.

Now the exciting thing is that flossing is at the BOTTOM of my good habits list that I’ve created and sustained so far.

Here are the exciting habits that I’m developing so far:

1. Consistent stretching EVERY SINGLE day. This has helped with my legs and inner thighs pain. Also overall body health since most of us work from home and sit in front of a computer all day.
2. Cardio exercise every other day: I do 40 minutes on my running app every other day now. This is just plain amazing to me. Before I would have stretches of running followed by long long periods of hiatus(we are talking about 9–12 months breaks).
3. Strength training: This is something I rarely do in the past. I found an app and downloaded and have been using it every other day. No gym. No equipments necessary. My gym memberships have been on hold since the pandemic.
4. Fasting: Consistent 16 hours minimum fasting. Some days it’s much higher. I have clarity of mind and less brain fog.
5. Dual N-Back Game: This game forces me to focus and increases my concentration. This is saying alot coming from an adult suffering from ADHD.
6. Spirit: As the creator of the Body-Mind-Spirit system, I want to work on all three aspects. Body being a big component given that’s where we are living in now, the physical plane. The mind through memory and focus games. The Spirit is lifted and motivated through reading uplifting self-improvement blogs and watching wonderful YouTube channels for motivation, deeper understanding, and just plain affirmations to keep me going on the journey.

I want all of you to create good habits, destroy bad habits, and create a better version of yourselves that you know is locked inside the cages of your body, mind, and spirit. The person you dreamed you could be but have given up.

I don’t have all the answers. But join me in this journey of self transformation, self love, and habit change.

Stats:

You can find the things I’m tracking in the GoogleSheet below. Please note some of the things I want to track will change over time as I learn from experience and what the data tells me. After all, I’m a data scientist.

Year of Consistency

Regardless, certain items will always be tracked because they are my outcome or target variables(such as weight, blood pressure, number of hours fasted, etc.)

I welcome you to watch, cheer me on, or participate in this journey of consistent doing and tracking of good self-improvement habits.

See you tomorrow!