How to Form Adaptable Habits
Your habits should be consistent most of the time, but adaptable when circumstances warrant it.
Traffic Lights Operate On Rigid Schedules
As I was driving to the gym this morning, I was stopped by an annoyingly long red light, and yet there wasn’t another car in sight.
I thought “There aren’t any other cars out… Why can’t this light just turn green already?”
This traffic light operates on a rigidly fixed schedule. It turns green in one direction and red for the other.
Most of the time, this rigid schedule accomplishes the ultimate goal of maintaining an orderly flow of traffic.
But on rare occasion—like this morning—a rigid schedule actually prevents the flow of traffic.
Smart Traffic Lights Intelligently Adjust
However, modern “smart” traffic lights use sensors that detect traffic patterns, and intelligently adjust their cycle timing. And they work well. During a pilot test of smart lights in Pittsburgh, motorists spent 40% less time idle at lights, and travel times across the city were reduced by 25%.
If I had been stuck at a smart traffic light with no other cars in the area, the traffic light would simply adjust its timing. It would skip a red light to stay committed to its ultimate goal: to keep traffic flowing efficiently… And getting me to the gym!
Then once a consistent flow of traffic has been re-established, the smart traffic light would resume its regularly scheduled programming.
Habits Should Adjust When Needed To Achieve A Goal
Smart traffic lights are akin to your habits: Your habits should be consistent most of the time, but adaptable when circumstances warrant it to achieve your ultimate goal.
For example, your goal is to journal mindfully every morning so you can be your best self with family and at work. Your tactic to make time for this is to wake up at 5AM every day.
But let’s say your wife is sick so you have to work double-duty with the household and nursing duties. Plus you have a big presentation for work, so you pull a late night. Ultimately you stay up past midnight.
To rigidly wake up at 5AM despite exhaustion might harm your ability to be fully present with your family that day. It may also prevent you from delivering a strong presentation to your team. You become like the traffic light operating on a fixed schedule.
Instead, it would be better to operate like a smart traffic light. Your habits should flex with an unusually large workload to stay on track toward your ultimate goal.
Flexible Habits Stick
Setting and sticking to consistent rules is a powerful way to build lasting habits. Having flexibility with your habits ensures that progress isn’t hindered by rigid adherence when the situation calls for an exception.
So, my advice to both you and myself is to take a lesson from smart traffic lights—stay consistent, but adapt when the moment calls for it.
— Grant Varner