By Leo Babauta

When most people try to start a new habit — like exercise, meditation, waking early, journaling — they tend to try to go as hard as they can. And in doing so, they set themselves up for failure.

I have a friend who wanted to start running, for example. Every time they ran, they would do it as fast as they could, so they were always really winded. That’s Too Fast, Too Soon (title of my new action movie franchise). It’ll lead to failure for most people.

Another person I talked to wanted to start waking up at 5am, two hours earlier than they were usually awake. They said they were worried they wouldn’t be able to stick to it for long. I agreed: you could probably do it for a few days, but you’ll crash and burn, most likely.

Now, going hardcore is possible, if you dedicate your entire life to this one change, and reduce all other commitments and stressors. You’d have to set up a lot of structure and support to make it work. But your odds of long term success go way down, just like a crash diet.

So I always recommend starting small. But there’s a more sophisticated technique, that I call “autoregulation” (borrowed from biology) that I’d like to share with you.

Here’s how it works, in brief:

1. Start the habit small — let’s say 15 minutes of easy exercise, or wake up just 5 minutes earlier than your normal time on Day 1.
2. Increase the next day, if you were successful. For the exercise example, increase by 2 minutes a day. For waking early, wake another 5 minutes earlier on Day 2.
3. Continue to increase the habit if you’re successful.
4. Decrease the habit if you miss a day. So if on Day 3 you wanted to wake up at 6:45am, but didn’t wake up until 7:30 … on Day 4, set your alarm for 6:50am. If you missed a day of exercise, decrease the exercise time by 2 minutes the next day. It’s important not to see this as a punishment for failure, but rather an adjustment for your long-term success.
5. Take a full day off if you’re tired, stressed, or too busy. Start the next day if at all possible, with a decrease in the habit (see #4).

If you follow this autoregulation method, you’ll make your habit easier when it’s needed, and make it more difficult when you have the capability to handle it.

Some days, you’re just busy, or tired, or stressed. On those days, take a break. Then come back the next day with a decreased habit goal (exercise 2 minutes shorter, wake 5 minutes later, etc.) to make it easier on yourself.

Some days, you have lots of energy and focus. On those days, it’s entirely appropriate to get to continue to increase the habit, slowly.

Using this method, you’ll increase your habit slowly, at a pace that’s appropriate for your capacity. If your body can’t handle increasing the exercise, take a break and then come back with an easier target.

This time-based approach works for a lot of habits: meditation, journaling, writing, learning a language. It doesn’t work as well if you’re changing your diet, but you can still use the same principles: slowly move closer to your target eating pattern each day, but give yourself breaks and slow down your progress as needed.

If you’re trying to procrastinate less, this can work too — start a daily habit of doing short focus sessions (start with 10 minutes, once a day) and increase by 10 minutes as long as you’re able to stick to the plan. For example, on Day 2, do a 20-minute focus session. On Day 3, do one 10-minute focus session and one 20-minute focus session. On Day 4, do two 20-minute focus sessions. Keep adding 10 minutes as long as you stick to it. If on Day 5 you don’t do the focus sessions, decrease by 10 minutes on Day 6.

At some point, you should stop increasing — perhaps when you get to your goal (waking at 5am, exercising for 40 minutes a day, etc.). But it’s possible your goal will change as you do this, and you can find the level that’s right for you to stop increasing through this method of slow change.

So that’s the autoregulation method for changing habits. It’s a compassionate approach that’s meant to increase your odds of long-term success. Give it a shot!

Btw, if you’d like to practice with others, I created The Practice in my Fearless Living Academy — to have our members practicing with this together, with structure, accountability and community. Come join us!