Frequently Asked Questions about the 5% Idea

(This is part of a series on the 5% Idea. You may want to start with the first post.)

What are some helpful tools to support me in doing to 5% idea?

One critical tool is to track what you’re doing and your progress. I mentioned earlier how critical it is for us to measure or to estimate our past behavior when determining how much to stretch. From that we can determine a realistic future goal.

For my exercise goal, as an example, I have a spreadsheet that I use to track my goals for the week and my actuals for the week. I additionally track how I’m doing over time. If the week is under goal then I’ll need to push myself the next week to correct it. Tracking allows us to really look at our performance and see where we need to build, as well as see the growth we’re making.

Another useful tool can be reminders. Most habits take faster if we build them into other structures we’ve created. For example, if you have a calendar that you look at consistently every day, putting reminders on the days you like to get your habit done will make it more likely that you get it done.

Be careful with reminders, however. Most of us over-remind ourselves. Have you ever had (maybe you do now) Post-It Notes littered throughout your office? Pasted around your monitor border, on your desktop? If we overuse reminders it’s like they don’t even exist.

I advocate that if you’re going to put reminders around you, it’s better to put them where you’ll be at the time you really need to act—what I call the “drop dead point.” Many of us put reminders to ourselves at the point in time we think we should be doing this thing. Instead, put your reminder at the point in time you must do it in order to keep the habit on track for that week. (You can put this kind of reminder on your task list for that day, your calendar, or some other tool with days on it.)

So, if I were trying to make sure I flossed twice a week, I might put my first reminder on the second-to-last day of the week, or maybe the day before, so that I had one day to “miss.” (You definitely don’t need to be perfect to get the benefits of the 5% rule—just consistent over periods of time.) I’ve found that over time, you’ll come to need the reminders less and less as the habit builds up.

You can also hook your habit to structure that’s already in your life. My wife and I don’t have kids (yet?), so we’ll often watch TV together a couple of nights a week. I hide my floss among the magazines on the coffee table and that way the floss is always there and available to me at the commercial breaks. This is an example of a good, simple way to hook into the existing structure of things, to hook your habit into where you know you’re going to be. All these little changes make consistency more likely.

Should I celebrate my progress along the way as I work the 5% idea?

Most definitely! You should celebrate your 5% progress. Celebration is one of my favorite parts of life, but it’s also a great way to anchor habits.

There are several places I often celebrate, but invent and celebrate any time you want to. The first celebration point is often as you're starting to measure your past progress and establishing your baseline performance level. Remind yourself of the power of getting out of the rut and deciding to just start something new in this area, to get off the train of overstretch. Congratulate yourself for that.

You can celebrate the point of consistency, after you’ve gone for a period (usually three to four weeks for me) consistently at the level of your historical average. That’s probably the first time you’ve done this habit with so much consistency, so why not celebrate?

Finally you can celebrate along the way. As you make your 5% increase, do that consistently and then add the next increase, find ways to reward yourself. Talk up this habit with others so they can enjoy your results. Maybe they’ll want to work on something, too, and you’ll inspire them with your progress.

Can I stretch for more than 5% improvements?

Sure you can. As I mentioned, sometimes we need more than 5% or something terrible might happen to something we deeply value, like our health, job or marriage.

Just be careful about deciding to go above 5%. Remember, I chose 5% (the idea being small, realistic stretches) because we tend to overstretch. Five percent, when added consistently over time, is a significant increase to a lifelong habit. Yet, it’s usually small enough an incremental change that most we can figure out how to build our way to that next level of behavior—just a little bit more.

If you’re going more than 5%, keep in mind doing that might stretch other areas of the system called “you.” When you’re progressing at 5%, my belief is that these other areas get a slow stretch and have time to recover. It’s like building a muscle very slowly. Nothing gets overdone and the rest of the “body” of your habits gets stronger and you slowly accommodate the slightly new behavior. Stretch too fast and it messes with some other part of the system.

So, if you’re going to go for the 10 or 20% stretch, you’ll need to account for the strain that could cause to other parts of your system. You’ll want to examine other affected habits, time commitments, quirks, etc. about you.

For example, if you’re going to put more time into project work each week, you’ll need to look at some other commitments of your time (other priorities, time wasters, or whatever) that you’re going to consciously reduce. Or, you may have to look at how you’re going to produce more time for the stretch itself. Maybe you’re going to work slightly more each week. Or you’re going to get off some other project. But you’ll need to adjust where your time is going in order to make that larger stretch.

You’ll also need to build the new stretch into your environment. You’re going to need more reminders. You’re going to need to think about the structure you could add to support you. Do you start scheduling appointments with yourself for this habit so that you can ensure the time is available? You’ll likely need to think about support.

Many of us perform better when we’re supported by others or accountable to them. To make this larger stretch, you may want to sign up with someone else for the result. If you’re going to be exercising 20% more over the next month, you may want to buddy up with someone and support each other. Larger stretches usually require you to adjust the overall system more if you’d like to be successful. Five percent stretches usually don’t require the extra support or system changes—they stretch more slowly, so can sneak their way in.

What is the hardest part of applying the 5% idea?

I’d say the first big block for most people in applying the 5% idea is inflexibility. We often get stuck in our ways of approaching things. The “should” trap I mentioned earlier is a pretty big one and so often the idea of doing anything other than what you believe you should be doing is met with resistance.

Einstein said it best when he said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.” But remember, the great part of the Einstein quote is this: if you’ve been feeling stuck or “insane” in a certain area, just by trying something new you’ve got a pretty good chance to get some new results.

The other common block, as I mentioned, is being impatient. We expect results to happen faster than they do. We think a certain level of results (usually a large incremental jump) must happen, or we believe we couldn’t possibly get real results from our efforts. Maybe on a certain level it’s that we’re just not confident that if the results don’t happen quickly enough we’ll have enough incentive to keep up the new changes. Managing our own impatience can be hard.

I’ve found the hardest part of the 5% idea is just keeping your impatience in check. As I feel the urge to do more or get started faster, I try to remind myself it’s not about what I do this month, or even this year. With maintenance habits, it’s really more about where I am five years or ten years from now in this area. Another thing I’ve found helps with the impatience is trying the 5% idea on several small habits simultaneously. That way you can feel the cumulative effect of tracking and starting to move on several small things. This usually feels like more of a benefit immediately, which is I think what our brain craves—we want the shorter term gratification!

What if I’m inconsistent as I get things started? What if I have periods of up and down?

I have had these periods every time I’ve used the 5% idea, and it still works for me. I remind myself the idea isn’t to eliminate inconsistency around my habits--it’s just to reduce it to smaller intervals. So rather than: I exercise for a month, then I don’t for a month, then I do, then I don’t, I try to be more consistent each week, even if each day isn’t perfect.

I work out regularly now and have for a couple of years. But by saying I work out regularly, I don’t mean I work out exactly the same amount each week. I do have a goal for the week, though, and when I miss it, I try to catch it up as fast as I can. I’m inconsistent, but I guess I’ve developed, through the 5% idea, the habits and the mental muscle to keep small inconsistencies around exercise from building to larger ones.

Building maintenance habits is more about building your internal confidence than anything. Your success in the habit is more a product of: overall do you feel confident that you are getting consistent? When you start to feel that way, you see that this week in the habit area may be slightly different from last week, but it’s not wildly different from last week. You’re no longer pitching between working out like a madman (or woman) and not working out at all.

The key part of building a habit is to watch for the wild swings, and learn to taper them. One behavior I highly recommend is to check in weekly with the habit, to learn from your performance. Each week, I look at my performance and say, “How can I make this even more consistent next week? What small corrections can I make?”

As an example, when I find that I haven’t been exercising consistently and I ask myself why, it may be that I’ve been traveling and the travel is interfering with the exercise. OK, good, so I ask myself, how I can improve that inconsistency by just a little bit the next time I travel? The answer might be I’m going to start looking a couple weeks ahead each month at my travel schedule and plan when I’m going to exercise. It may be that I’ll work out more in weeks when I’m not traveling as a way to keep my exercise consistent. Or I might think about the usual travel exercise obstacles and think of one change I’ll make that will shrink one obstacle.

In my next post I will talk about how I handle my diet, an area where I’ve chosen not to be perfect, where I’ve chosen to be just good and do that consistently.