66. If you reach the point of 'feeling uncomfortable if you don't do it,' you've won: The issue of social pressure
Habit is said to be the body moving automatically. However, reaching that point is actually quite difficult, isn't it?
For example, brushing one's teeth is often cited, but I think this is an inappropriate metaphor. This is equivalent to women wearing makeup (and women, of course, also brush their teeth), and it seems to be a product of social pressure. It's something like, 'It's unsightly not to do it,' or 'It's unthinkable not to do it,' making it almost mandatory. Bathing is similar, but recently the 'bath-canceling' trend has become popular, which is terrifying. Bath-canceling is basically unthinkable when going out, and if someone thinks it's fine or doesn't care, one has to infer that they are harboring significant internal problems.
The ultimate form of social pressure is language; if you go to America, you will inevitably learn at least some English. If it's just for travel, you might be able to get by with just your native language and a smartphone translator, but if you are living there, that won't work. That said, that is only because everyone other than you is using English, which is a form of social pressure.
Since social pressure is effective for habit formation in this way, advice often arises such as doing a diet with someone else or posting your goals and weight on social media. In fact, it can be said that this has a significant effect.
On the other hand, it also means that it is difficult to turn things into habits where there is no obvious social pressure.
Obvious social pressure arises when the current state differs from the standard state. This means it does not apply when the current state is the standard state. For example, for someone on a diet, unless they are a martial artist who must drop weight to meet a limit, or they cannot gain weight due to illness, it will basically be a matter of wanting to lose weight for beauty purposes. However, unless a person suddenly contracts a fatal illness, they do not suddenly get fat or suddenly get thin, so that change is absorbed gradually in daily life. When you notice it, you and others might think, 'Oh, I've gained weight,' but that doesn't necessarily become a critical issue. There are people who are excellent even if they are fat, people who are rich, and even people who are popular despite being fat. Of course, it depends on the degree of being overweight. That said, according to standard BMI criteria, anything over 25 is considered overweight, but it is almost invisible to the eye.
Weight is one of those statuses that is like a crystallization of all life circumstances, such as exercise habits, diet, and stress, and if it is deviating above or below the standard, it is something that should be adjusted. And if you are not doing it despite thinking that it would be better to diet if possible, it means that other circumstances are more important, or that you have judged the effort required to do so to be extremely poor in terms of cost-performance. It is common to say that you are too busy with work to have time to exercise, and the irony that 'you don't have the physical strength to build physical strength' has been talked about for a long time. Of course, there are people who are constitutionally thin or fat, but I will exclude them.
Social pressure does not work on things where you know that doing even a little bit of something in response will be to your benefit later. For example, if all of your child's friends are going to cram school, wanting to send your own child to cram school is not only peer pressure but also proof that you are anxious about your child's academic ability, so it is a task of returning a negative to zero. People are driven by such things. That is because there is social pressure. On the other hand, once you reach the average level, it is difficult to actively take action to surpass it. This is because such behavior structurally becomes 'jumping the gun' or 'standing alone,' and since it is a task of turning zero into a plus, social pressure does not work there either.
To deal with this, we end up talking about how the environment is important, or how the aforementioned 'declaration' is important. It's the common story that willpower alone cannot solve things. Not willpower, but a system; not willpower, but an environment; not willpower, but compulsion...
That said, it is human nature to wonder if things can't be done with intrinsic motivation alone. Frankly speaking, declaring on social media while accepting that you might be embarrassed has a higher psychological hurdle, but it is physically easy. On the other hand, while physical things seem difficult when they arise, it is often the case that moving objects is easier. For example, I think signing up for a gym or buying training gear is basically not decisive at all. You are satisfied with signing up or buying, and since you can get by without doing it as long as you accept that you have lost money, it doesn't work. In contrast, moving house or changing jobs is effective because your life changes completely, so you cannot just do that.
What I wanted to talk about this time is that, even setting those circumstances aside, it is possible for something to accidentally become a 'habit.' This is from my own experience; I have come to feel the emotion mentioned in the title, 'feeling uncomfortable if I don't do it,' regarding two habits. I felt a little surprised when I realized it.
One is this very article. Actually, I have achieved 65 consecutive days with this one. I really wanted to write an article saying, 'I've achieved two consecutive months of updates!', but I missed the timing. However, I might quietly post an article to that effect tomorrow or the day after. I want to post it.
I am updating this article almost in real-time. I really want to write articles in advance, but I can't do that at all. Sometimes I can write early, but basically, I start writing and posting around the end of the day. Thanks to that, this has become a complete habit. Because I have been continuing it for so long, I think it is unacceptable to stop and break it. In a sense, it goes beyond the feeling of being uncomfortable if I don't do it. I have even updated twice in one day, so it's a bit too much, but no matter how painful it is, I do this. I am working, but conversely, I am even saving on new work for the sake of this. I can't help but wonder about that, but this habit has that much value to me for the time being.
However, I am doing what I want to do with the sole purpose of continuing, and there is a large aspect of giving up on various other things. I have given up on quality. I am prioritizing writing. On the other hand, even though I am continuing with the motto of lowering the hurdle to make it easier, the character count does not decrease at all. I think this is a real problem. I really think I should summarize it in about 800 characters. However, it was easier to continue if I gave up on that. This tuning is the next challenge. On the other hand, because my work environment changed due to travel this past week, I gave up on basic motifs such as attaching header images or mentioning books and adding links. That was based on the judgment that while it is better to do those things, continuation is the priority. It might not be ideal if you think about maximum utility and maximum efficiency, but it might be a reference for what you should sacrifice when continuing something.
The other is a habit I have been doing quietly, which is the 'ab roller.' It could be sit-ups, but it's a roller. Actually, I have been doing this since around 2014, and after continuing for 2-3 years, I stopped doing it completely, then restarted a year later, stopped again, and then I was in a state where I hadn't done it for 3-4 years. When I was doing it often, I was doing about 30 reps in 2-3 sets a day. I revived this from around February of this year and have continued it until now.
That said, unlike Note, I am not doing it every single day without interruption. There were times when I would take a day off, or do it and then take a day off. However, I am doing it more than 4 times a week on average.
I have thought from the beginning that the trick to sustaining something like an ab roller is 'not to seek perfection.' If you think, 'My record has been broken,' when you take a day off, you will fall into self-abandonment, thinking that everything has been ruined, and you will stop continuing. I went with the idea that it's okay to take a day or two off, and that it's fine to continue even if there are gaps, as long as you raise the overall average. That was the same during the period years ago, but since restarting after a long time was like starting anew, I paid a lot of attention to adjusting my mindset. I am doing about 30 reps a day now, but at first, I started with about 10, and I decided that 5 would be fine if I felt lazy. The fact that a record is created if I do it became an important incentive.
However, when I restarted this at the beginning of this year, a piece of information was an important boost. It was the content of a survey at some university that said that things continued for three months but at a frequency of 4 times a week or less were difficult to establish as a habit thereafter, but things continued for three months at 5 times a week or more were easy to establish as a habit thereafter. I haven't verified that, but I felt it was very on-point as a guideline. In fact, the fact that 5 times a week is enough means, conversely, that you can slack off 2 times a week. I basically used the roller every day, but there are times when I don't do it because of emergencies or being swamped. However, there was rarely a time when I missed 3 days in a row. Or rather, there probably wasn't. If you go with the spirit of doing it every day, you can achieve the figure of 5 times a week. And my three months have long since passed.
As a result, I have recently finally come to feel the emotion of being uncomfortable if I don't roll the ab roller. I am surprised, as I thought this story might be an urban legend. Therefore, for example, when I am about to go out without doing the roller, I undo my luggage and roll the roller, thinking I will do it at this timing.
This is because rolling the roller is a very simple task. You can do it at home, and if you have the roller and space, you can roll it right there. Conversely, if the floor is so cluttered that you can't roll the roller, it's over. You must avoid that at all costs. On the other hand, if you wanted to make going to the gym a habit, the hurdle of doing it 5 times a week would be quite high. If you were to realize it, I think it would be essential to set it up such as signing up for a gym on the way home from work or school and making it a rule to always stop by, even if you don't have to train. Conversely, if there is no gym on the way home, it can be said to be almost impossible.
However, if it is something close at hand or something you can do at home, you might be able to overcome the hurdle of 5 times a week for 3 months. At least you can challenge it. You don't need big changes like moving or changing jobs for that. However, for those who want to change reality even a little bit, I can strongly recommend starting with things close at hand and materials close at hand. And when you pass the first 3 months and that habit continues for 1 or 2 years, you should have achieved surprisingly great results.