Our lives often revolve around habits. The way we plan our campouts, the way we pack our bags and the way we lead are all examples of Scouting habits. Building good habits can benefit our experiences in both the Order of the Arrow and our units. Luckily, building good habits takes four easy steps. These steps can be boiled down into four “Rs”: Ready, Reinforce, Repeat, and Reflect.
Ready. The first step in developing a good habit is to establish why you’re building the habit. Do you want to make better PLC agendas? Do you want to run a better ceremony? Do you want to get out of bed faster? Coming up with a few good reasons for your habit is the best way to encourage yourself. If you’re excited about the outcome, you’re more likely to go through the process of building the habit.
Reinforce. After you’ve decided why you’re building a habit, you need to reinforce that excitement with a plan. Similar to making SMART goals, we can make SMART habits:
S – Specific
M – Maintainable
A – Active
R – Realistic
T – Timely
For example, perhaps your habit is going to be “Wake up on time.” Here is how to make this habit a SMART one:
Specific: What time are you going to wake up? “On time” can be vague. In this case, we’ll go with 7 a.m.
Maintainable: Is it possible to always wake up at 7 a.m.? Will you need to sleep in on some days?
Active: Make sure that your habit involves you doing something. Your habit shouldn’t simply be “Wake up at 7 a.m..” Instead, set something like “Get out of bed at 7 a.m.” or “Set my alarm for 7 a.m. every morning.”
Realistic: Make sure that you can do this task in the first place. Does your sleep schedule allow for this? If you’re staying up until 3 a.m. every morning, maybe not. Maybe you need to add to your goal to get to bed on time each night.
Timely: Make sure that this goal has a timeframe. In this case, the timeframe would be during events.
Overall, the habit becomes “Get out of bed at 7 a.m. during events.”
Repeat: Once you’ve set a SMART habit, you need to do it. More than that, you need to repeat it. It’s best to repeat a habit for at least two weeks before it will truly become a habit.
Sometimes it can be difficult to maintain a habit long enough. It can be easy to set barriers for yourself. In addition, other barriers will occur in your personal life. When this happens, it can be difficult to maintain your habit, especially if it’s recent or puts you out of your comfort zone.
When this happens, the best way to combat it is to remember your reasons from step one. The Ready stage is to prepare you for this stage.
Reflect: After you’ve built a good habit, it’s best to spend some time in reflection. Look back on how the habit is working. Has the habit accomplished what you wanted it to? Do you need to tweak it? Asking these questions can help you to strengthen your habits, and better prepare you to make new ones in the future.