The start of a new month is the perfect time to commit to a new habit.

The formation of a new habit take anything from 20 days to 90 days but even repeating new behaviour for 10 consecutive days can have a major impact on your neural pathways – the connections in your brain that help automate your daily habits.

Think of brushing your teeth. While this is an example of a simple habit, it’s one that you’ve perfected so well by practicing it every day for years that today it just makes sense to wake up and go brush your teeth.

You just “know” you have to do it.

This same logic can be built around any other new habit – you just have to figure out where you want to place it in your schedule.

But first….

What do you want to focus on in the next 30 days?

1. AUTOMATING A NEW HABIT

Every new habit starts with the desire for change. What is it that you want to change or improve about your lifestyle?

Whatever it is, think about when you can introduce it into your routine, so that you can practice it daily for the next 30 days.

For example, your cue for practicing the new habit might be at the end of work:

17:30 Finish work (cue)
17:30 - 17:45 Quick break (preparation time)
17:45 - 18:15 Time to practice new habit
18:15 - 18:30 Reward (optional)

The most important thing to remember when building a new habit is that the only thing that matters is showing up for it. You might feel like you have no idea what you’re doing at first. That’s normal. Keep showing up for it and doing the work.

Creating a small reward for your good behaviour might help you stick to the habit with more excitement. This might just be something simple and relaxing like 15 minutes of doing nothing!

2. MASTERING AN EXISTING SKILL

If the biggest challenge to a new beginner is the lack of clarity as to what’s the next step, the one thing that often blocks those dedicated the most from progressing is knowing exactly how many steps there are to be taken. Yes, I’m talking about burnout.

Setting out to master an existing skill in 30 days is a similar pursuit to those starting from scratch. You still need to place your habit somewhere in your routine that allows you to practice it daily. But the challenge here is not to overdo it.

Don’t do more than the daily limit even if you want to – learn to separate from the process so that you don’t burn out. Your limit can be related to time (“I will not work more than 2 hours”) or to the amount of work (“I will only write up to 5 pages daily”).

There’s nothing more important for mastering a skill than consistency. When you're burnt out, two things happen. Firstly and more importantly, you need to allow yourself the recovery time your body and mind require. Secondly, even if you push yourself and power through the low energy, you still won’t be able to give your best efforts.

3. COMPLETING A BIG PROJECT

You can also turn a big project into a “temporary daily habit” so that you can fully integrate it into your schedule.

For example, this is how you can integrate work on your big project before lunchtime:

8:00 - 8:30 Breakfast
8:30 - 8:45 Coffee, agenda check, emails
8:45 - 9:00 Prepare for the task
9:00 - 11:00 Daily dedicated task time

The point of this exercise is to give yourself the best chance to enter a state of flow, so that you can focus deeply on the long list of tasks and complete the big project faster.

P.S. Speaking of brushing your teeth: did you know that you can strengthen your brain by brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand every now and then?