Introducing The Habit Pyramid

Yesterday I went to the dentist and for the first time in my entire life, I didn’t get in trouble.
No more guilt trips with “are you flossing every day?”

I picked up the habit around about a year ago. And learning how to build a habit that seems so easy but evades most of us led to an interesting discovery about how to pick up new habits.

Maybe you’ve read Atomic Habits or The Power of Habit or Tiny Habits. They talk about habit stacking or cues and reward cycles. Ideas like making the thing easy and attractive to do.
All great advice.
But there’s something missing with most habit advice about how to continue...not just start it.

I wanted to start flossing because my gums were receding. The dentist suggested that if I floss every day it would help strengthen my gums and I wouldn’t eventually need (a very painful) surgery. So I did some shopping and bought a high-end waterpik (basically flossing with water). I used it for a week or two but it never really caught on. It was too novel. And too intense.

Then I bought nice floss. Not the generic Walgreens stuff or Reach or whatever little travel floss the dentist hands out. But high-end floss that I bought a subscription too. I didn’t even really know it existed before I went shopping. But again, didn’t really do the trick. It was too nice. I didn’t feel right using it all the time.

Then I bought the cheapest plastic flossers I could find. Target sells them in packs of 200. (Yes, I know they’re cheap plastic and will stay in a landfill for thousands of years.) And I put them in a jar on the bathroom counter. And chose to do it right before I brush.
That stacking helped me start flossing daily. I wasn’t doing a great job at first. Not even all that consistent. The goal was just to show up and do some flossing every day.

And it clicked. I worked my way through the entire pack. 200 days. About 7 months of daily flossing. It felt like it stuck. Then, instead of buying the same cheap plastic pack, I opened up the expensive subscription floss. Oooooh. High quality floss. Little flavor. Strong string. I was feeling great. And finally, when I felt ready, I went back to the waterpik. I use it every night now.

I’m proposing there are three steps to creating AND MAINTAINING a habit. I’ll call it the Habit Pyramid.

First, the foundation is consistency.

Just show up. Just start. I needed to just have something low-stakes to use to floss every day. If you’re starting a diet or exercise habit. If you want to read every day or practice a language more, start really small.  Consistency is key. 2 minutes a day. 5 notecards. One flosser.

From there, BUILD up TO quality.

Yes, the quality of the equipment but also the quality of the activity. I’m not just flossing quickly, I’m making sure that I’m going on both edges of the teeth. Working out, I might go from a 10 minutes light exercise in the consistency phase into really focusing on my form and breathing in the quality phase. It might mean I work out for longer too.

the last phase of habit MAINTENANCE is intensity.

Push yourself a little bit to grow. This is where the waterpik comes in for my flossing– I can literally up the intensity of the water pressure. This means extending your time, lift heavier weights, have a short conversation or read a few headlines in a foreign language. This is the phase where you see big results. Up until now, you’ve just been building up to growth. And it’s why a lot of people quit habits. Because they don’t see the results they were expecting.

When you’re trying to create AND maintain a habit, think of the habit pyramid.

Start by showing up consistently.
Then focus on quality.
Then grow with more intensity.

You got this.

---

Caveday is a company aimed at improving your relationship to work. We write regular posts on Medium and send out monthly newsletters with productivity tips, life hacks, and recommendations. Sign up for the mailing list here.

Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.