“All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.” Blaise Pascal, 1670.
For years I kept changing things. A new habit, a new tool, a new way to run the morning. Running experiments is one of my most valuable habits: trying things that are new, uncomfortable or both. The same restless urge that makes me try new things also makes me swap habits that already run good enough, testing whether they could work better and knowing I might make them worse, instead of leaving them alone long enough to settle and build momentum.
Each habit costs attention to switch into. Past a certain count your habit portfolio collapses under the context switching. I cut the number of habits back, the count creeps up, the portfolio collapses again. Habits multiply until they outrun the willpower that feeds them, the same Malthusian trap a population hits when it outgrows its food. So I capped my habit portfolio at 13 habits.
The hard cap held the number down. The experimental urge kept looking for work. Blocked from adding, it turned to swapping instead. One habit out for each one in. Each swap arrived with a reason that sounded good, which is exactly why I kept saying yes.
I wanted more movement through the day, so I traded my running goal for a step count. The cold shower each morning was still working fine but felt too rigid, so I swapped it for a daily courage challenge. Courage challenges flex.
- Some mornings the cold water
- Some mornings a hard conversation
- Some mornings the call I kept dodging
The reason sounded good again.
Then my skin got worse.
My habit app counted 389 cold showers behind me. Somewhere in those mornings I stopped noticing what the cold water did for my skin, so I swapped the shower out without much thought. A flexible challenge rarely puts me under cold water. I was slow to connect the worse skin to the missing cold showers. I traded a specific benefit for a general one and lost the skin benefit only cold water gave me.
A habit portfolio that keeps changing never builds momentum. The portfolio never stabilizes, so the willpower it takes to run never goes down. Each swap resets the settling period. My days run rough until the portfolio settles again. Each time, I told myself I was reaching for better. The effect was the opposite. I traded a portfolio that ran good enough untouched for one that needed fresh willpower each morning. The momentum reset to zero. The habits I traded away were already working good enough.
So I tied myself to the mast. My habit portfolio locks for the month. The first five days are the only window for a swap. After that the portfolio holds. The urge can sing all it wants with nothing to reach for.
Perfect is a myth. Good enough is the goal. When the portfolio finally runs good enough, the work is to leave it untouched, let momentum build and give the urge nothing to fix.
🪡
What could you protect by changing nothing?
