Modular Habits

Rethinking the push for "optimization"

Spending the last 15 years immersed in the fitness and wellness spaces I’ve heard the word “optimization” a lot. For a long time it felt like a necessity to be a modern high achiever. The person who was fully living their potential has optimized bed time routines. Optimized morning stacks. Optimized supplementation for their optimized workouts.

I aspired towards optimization.
Until I didn’t.

Until I learned more about human wellbeing (grad school), lockdown hit (while in grad school), and I started to have the extra space and time to not only hear myself think, but listen to my body speak.

What I found there was the realization that much of my “high achieving” was actually from external drivers. The pressure to produce, the need to be seen as a leader - and the feeling that I had to project having everything together in my life to make it. I had to be “optimized” or no one would buy into my work.

I could not have been more wrong.

The push to optimize just-about-everything has lead myself and many clients into a state of wellness overwhelm: the place where wellness and self care efforts feel like a chore instead of an investment in yourself. Because of the pressure to get it all right everything starts to feel wrong. At that point our efforts for self-development become a stressor in themselves and we backslide - hard.

So what do we do?

Modular Habits

We want to change our habits.  We want to build healthful behaviors that support long term wellness and wellbeing - and we also don’t need or want to become overzealous biohacking optimizers.

Enter: modular habits.

Modular habits come from the recognition that certain habits will promote the short and long-term wellness and wellbeing AND we don’t have to do everything every single day in order for it to be effective. We recognize the things that will be most helpful in the time and space we have and prioritize those.

You’re choosing the habits that will produce the state of wellbeing and also tailored to the life you’re in at this time.

Let’s walk through the process I use with my clients:

First, begin with questions that help frame out what your intentions are.

• How do you want to feel? &/or what do you need to be in the right frame of mind or state of being for what’s coming up?

• What behaviors do you already know that make that feeling or state more accessible?

There are 2 axioms for you to remember: (1) not everything works for everyone all of the time and (2) the goals isn’t optimization but giving you what you need to be more of who you want to be.

Next, consider the kinds of states of mind you’ve built into your life. What kinds of days do you have or activities you need to show up for. Here are three examples from my own life because I generally have 3 kinds of days:

• Travel days - I’m in transit or on the road to speak somewhere

• Creative days - days without clients that aren’t as structured. Mostly admin or creating the next project in my business

• Client days - days spent on camera coaching, teaching, or facilitating

Each of these days will have it’s own specific needs. For example, on client days I have to be “camera ready” for workshops or client calls. On creative days I need to feel free to chase ideas down rabbit holes.

Next we look at assembling the puzzle pieces by building habit stacks that prime that feeling or state:

• In the short term - what habits get you ready for your day? Or the kind of day you need to have on deck?

• In the long term - what state of mind do you want to carry around most days?

To continue the example from above:

• Travel days I’m speaking, teaching, and need to be “on” in the biggest way possible. I’ll need to manage symptoms of my illness, how nervous or drowsy I am, the prime clarity of thought and presence when it’s go time.
  

• Creative days are deep thinking days. I’m creating and executing on to-do lists, nailing down admin work and communications, being organized and having high executive function to get things done.
  

• Client days are all about presence. To-do lists are generally light and the main focus throughout the day are keeping blood sugar levels even, to-do lists light, and priming shared-flow with my client.

Instead of one “optimal” stack of habits that can become dogmatic and attached to, modular habits give us flexibility, meet mind and body where they are, and still give us the support we need to get where we’re going.

Next, it’s time to figure out where to use your habits. I recommend either:

• Anchoring habits in time and space (I do this at 3p)

• Anchoring habits to a specific event/action (I do this while I drink my coffee)

Putting it all together

Here’s the whole system, all together:

1. What kind of days do you have?

   1. Step back and look at your overall life - - do you need modular days or are they all pretty routine?

   2. If it’s routine, you can still use the same foundational steps… just might not shift it around as much

   3. If it does shift - label those categories of days (I have travel, creative, client)
      

2. For each of your categories ask yourself:

   1. What kind of state do I need/want to be in for that?

      1. “State” might not be familiar word - state of being.  State of mind.

         1. Think about your personal descriptive words: Calm.  Alert.  Present.  Compassionate.
            

   2. What kinds of input creates that state?

      1. Input could mean physical actions & activities, journaling, meditations, supplementation, meal makeup & meal timing
         

3. How do those things fit with what you currently do?

   1. Take anything out?  Move anything around? …. Adjust accordingly
      

4. How will I help myself remember this habit stack?

   1. Not uncommon for us to just forget what we say we’ll change… so how will you remember this?

Then you’re going to experiment! You’ll likely have to tinker and try new things. That’s good!  Remember - you’re here to learn and grow into the you that you want to be. Likely along the way you’ll find some things that work great, and others that are bonkers.

Final Thoughts

In some spiritual disciplines they talk about not becoming overly attached to any particular method.  That when we become dogmatic we miss the point of what we’re trying to accomplish and we’re not paying attention to what that practice is really doing to or for us

I think we can become that way about wellness and fitness. We get so dogmatic about doing everything right that we miss the forest for the trees.

You might consider checking out the episode on self care. The proactive/reactive strategies dovetail nicely with this modular mentality.

Big thanks to Shirley Berthelet for requesting an article on this topic!