Turn Your Tiny Habits Into Dance Parties
In 2021 I set out to improve my Spanish speaking. Spoiler alert: my efforts were a success! While I’m feliz to humblebrag, more interesting is the actual habit formation.
As the covid-19 pandemic hit the U.S. in early 2020, the patterns of my life shifted substantially. (More about that here!) In this shift, I found an opening to start learning a new language. This had long been a goal of mine, but I’d never gotten around to starting. It always felt like a daunting task without a necessity driving me to begin. The pandemic broke old patterns and created the space to create new ones. Without the standard hustle that included a daily commute or necessity to rush from one activity to the next, I found space to do something small yet different in my daily routine.
I started using Duolingo daily to learn Spanish. BJ Fogg, human behavior researcher and author, coined the phrase “tiny habits”. This concept asks you to consider the smallest possible unit of [something] that you can do daily — no matter what — to begin creating a habit that sticks. For example, are you interested in jump starting an exercise routine? You might try a single push-up. Want to develop a meditation practice? Sit quietly, on purpose, for one minute. Or in my case, how about learning a new language? I opted to use Duolingo, a popular language app, to complete a single lesson. By starting with an absurdly small activity, it can more easily become a part of your daily routine.
These small daily habits create patterns. A pattern forms through repetition. The idea is that even on your worst day — when you’re busy, tired, perhaps even sick — you can still complete this small unit of activity and therefore continue forming a new habit. As I started my language journey at the beginning of the pandemic, I managed to complete at least one Duolingo Spanish lesson each day. On many days I managed to do more than one; however, my official “tiny habit” was a single lesson that might take me about five minutes to complete. While of course, language fluency will undoubtedly take more than a few minutes per day using an app, this tiny habit helped to form a new daily pattern that would kick-start and soon accelerate my language learning skills.
By the time 2021 rolled around I had about nine months of my tiny habit practice under my belt. As I set out to expand my language skills earlier this year, I wanted to build on my Duolingo practice. Afterall, application of a language in day-to-day life is far more useful (and more fun!) than learning a bunch of vocabulary and verb conjugations that simply remain in the recesses of your brain. In January I found a community tutor on italki, a learning platform that links you up with language tutors all over the world. I established a near weekly cadence talking with Brayan, an incredibly kind and patient tutor from Colombia. We began conversing for 45 minutes each week. It’s here that I gathered enough courage to actually start speaking Spanish regularly.
In the words of James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, these patterns favor consistency over intensity. I used small building blocks to form a new habit. Through these consistent actions, I am forming a new personal pattern: I now muster up enough courage to casually engage with native Spanish speakers wherever I can. While I’m nowhere near fluent just yet, these incremental micro-movements are the foundational building blocks to achieving mastery.
And it gets even better: I wasn’t alone in my learning journey.
According to my end-of-year Duolingo report, 34 million people across the globe were also learning Spanish on the platform in 2021. In other words, my individual pattern is part of a broader system of learning and communication. As people who are part of this language learning network strengthen their skills individually, we all strengthen our skills collectively, and open the door to new possibilities. The more we can speak to each other, the greater the potential for cross-cultural awareness and understanding; new levels of communication and listening; and emerging collaborations and innovation.
With 2022 days away, you may be contemplating new year’s resolutions or intentions, changes you’d like to make, and goals you plan to set. As you do, I encourage you to contemplate not just how your personal habits will impact you, but also the ways your actions connect to the world around you. For example, there are thousands, if not millions of people who take on personal health goals each year. This might be through increased movement, or making healthier food choices. For some people, feeling better may be enough to get started and keep motivated. But when the going gets tough, a systems-level view may be the difference between sticking to your goal and falling back into old patterns. Consider this: What are the ripple effects of this new habit? You may set an example of healthy eating habits for the kids in your life. How might your individual habit contribute to the betterment of your immediate community? You might have more energy, greater flexibility, or increased dexterity to be able to help a neighbor in need. The wider ecosystem and planet? You may start visiting your local farmer’s market and thereby connect to and support your regional food system. And what becomes possible when we realize how the power of our actions and behaviors actually influence and create culture?
A recent article titled, Why These Mexican Fish Do the Wave, talks about how biologists are observing sulphur mollies and their groovy (pun intended) behavior. As winged predators touch down on the water to catch their next meal, these tiny fish band together to create a flash mob dance party that startles their predators and prevents them from easily gobbling up their next meal. Each individual fish, described as “a tiny silver slip”, cannot alone create such a dramatic effect or impact. However, together, thousands of sulphur mollies take a simple yet profound action that literally creates waves.
In closing, ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, shared the following:
Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
This sentiment, often shared in my meditation and mindfulness circles, reinforces pattern formation. Our individual and collective patterns shape the systems we live in.
As I reflect on this last year and the language learning system that I was part of, I’m proud and humbled to be part of a language learning community that is supporting my personal dream to be bilingual. This is also a system that reinforces qualities like a growth mindset, promotes greater understanding, strengthens relationships, and fosters community. I’m looking forward to creating more waves in 2022 as part of a global system of Spanish language learners, one lesson and conversation building block at a time.
What kind of splash are you planning to make in the new year? I’d love to hear.
