Bipolar & Creating Mini-Habits for Positive Change

With or without bipolar disorder, changing our lifestyle “default settings” must be done one mini-habit at a time.

“Go Big or Go Home” Doesn’t Work with Bipolar

If you are like me, there have been numerous times you were highly motivated to make BIG changes in your mental health journey. One of those times, for me, was deciding that I needed to exercise at least three times a week. That was a big change to make since I wasn’t even exercising once a week. So I exercised three times that first week, but, by the next week, I had given it up. I just couldn’t do it. It was too big of a change.

I’ve done this over and over throughout the years since being diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1995. I would be highly motivated to make a healthy change regarding my sleep, eating, exercising, thinking, or working. It seemed that the motivation to make the change would last a short time before I would revert to my “default settings.” And, each time, I would feel like a bigger failure.

Unable to Sustain Motivation & Feeling Like a Failure

I began to believe that my inability to stay motivated to make a healthy change had to be connected in some way to having bipolar disorder. After all, I could easily become “laser-beam-focused” on something I wanted or liked to do, so I became convinced that my repeated failures must have something to do with having bipolar.

It was as though any unhealthy “default settings” I had or any changes that I wasn’t all that interested in—even though they would be good for me—could only be made little by little. I figured this was because I just didn’t have enough self-motivation to do them all at once, or I didn’t have the self-discipline necessary, or somehow there was a flaw in my character.

Those beliefs changed recently when someone introduced me to a book that they had found very helpful in making changes in their life. The title of the book is Mini Habits, by Stephen Guise. I discovered that if I began making small changes for extended periods of time, the changes would stick.

Motivation vs. Self-Will

In the book, Guise clarifies the difference between motivation and self-will. He says that motivation is short-lived, and to make real change you have to begin doing small things that can be done via pure self-will, rather than depending on motivation to do it.

He started to change his health by doing one push-up daily. Sounds “crazy,” doesn’t it? But think about it. Had he decided to do 50 per day, that would have required ongoing motivation, and he would have given up when the motivation to do the 50 push-ups had passed. (Which would have been on the first day for me!)

So, his first mini habit was to do a single push-up. Doing just the one push-up was something he could make himself do via the power of self-will. What he found was that once he would do one push-up, he always did a few more; but, no matter what, he always did at least one. He changed his brain’s default setting slowly, over time, and it stuck.

How Mini-Habits Have Improved My Life

I’ve got to tell you that this little book on mini-habits is changing my life!

I’ve stopped beating up on myself for not being able to make sweeping changes in my life. It makes total sense to me. There are small things I can choose to do whether I feel motivated to do them or not.

For example, I know I need to drink more water, especially with the meds that I take. But the thought of drinking eight full glasses of water overwhelms me, and I end up drinking nothing.

So, I started with the mini-habit of drinking one large full glass of water with my meds first thing in the morning. And I’ve found myself drinking more water throughout the day—and enjoying it!

I know, it’s not an earth-shattering change, but earth-shattering changes won’t work. Most of us do not have that kind of motivation, with or without bipolar disorder.

Understanding My Brain & Unlocking the Power to Change for Good

It only makes sense that our brains have default settings. Those are the settings that our brains default to when we are stressed or the things we can do with little to no thought.

For example, my default setting for when to eat is when I’m sad, happy, tired, stressed, or when I’m awake! This eating default setting has been a well-worn pattern in my brain for many years.

Unfortunately, unlike being able to go into your computer’s default settings, make a change, and click “save,” we cannot do that with our brains. Instead, if we want to make changes to our default settings, we must make them bit by bit, by starting a mini-habit that we can do without one ounce of motivation on our part—a simple thing that can be done by sheer willpower.

Struggling with Big Lifestyle Changes Is Not a Personal Flaw

Discovering this information has become the single greatest key to making change happen in my life.

Your inability to make sweeping health changes in your life is not a character flaw. It’s called being human!

So, what mini-habit can you do (by the power of sheer self-will) that will bring about a simple, healthy change in your life?

Originally posted February 12, 2017.