What Hypercars Can Teach You About Habits
Not even sure what a hypercar even is!? Me neither until last night.
Welcome back! To this newsletter anyway – I’m aware it’s mid Jan, just a little slow on the return to here. Hope you had a restorative break and that the year has been smooth so far.
Speaking of smooth… (what a segue, clearly 2024 is going to be a live one.)
Do you know what a hypercar is?
I didn’t, until last night when I read a feature on them that made me think quite deeply. Not about hypercars themselves, obviously. They’ve been safely filed in my mind under, ‘might signify end of humanity / will never care for or have much in common with anyone who does’ alongside expensive watches and super-yachts. No, what made me think was something one of their manufacturers said.
First, for the uninformed, like me… A ‘hypercar’ is a very high performing sports car, it’s unimaginably fast, excruciatingly loud and, depending on your point of view, beautiful or grotesque (guess where I stand?) Crucially, it’s a road car – designed not for the racing track, but the school run.
The feature I read was about the race between hypercar companies to create the fastest road car – their raison d’etre as far as I could tell.
And this manufacturer, who currently holds the record for fastest car (300mph ish), explained his process behind building this terrifyingly fast machine.
He didn’t do anything drastic.
He didn’t do anything big.
Instead, he made lots and lots of tiny changes.
A millimetre here, an extra bit of polish there. (Clearly, I know nothing about cars – there was probably significantly more engineering involved.)
Anyway, what happened is that all those tiny changes, which individually wouldn’t have added up to much, made the world of difference. Together, they created the fastest car in the world.
And I think it’s a good reminder, especially now, when we’ve just passed the day that most people give up on their ill-considered new years resolutions, that sometimes you’ve got to stop thinking BIG, and start thinking small.
Micro changes, manageable habits – this is how we create the best version of ourselves, whatever that might mean for us.
Change is scary – a fact rooted in neuroscience: the brain craves familiarity and resists big change. It’s better – we’re better – with the small stuff. Simple changes require less willpower, energy and time and are less disruptive to our normal routine. This makes it much easier to stick to them, which makes us more likely to see good results. And taken together, small things have the potential to create big change.
Let's say you want to start a new habit. Micro changes may look something like this:
Walk the escalator or take the stairs
Meditate for 1 minute everyday
Write down 1 thing you’re grateful for every morning
Leave your phone outside your bedroom at night
Drink a full glass of water as soon as you wake up
Kinda boring, tbh.
But impactful.
And at the end of the day that’s what really matters.
So, if you want to take up a new habit this year, consider starting small. It could make the world of difference.
What micro habit are you going to try this week? Let me know below, remember writing it down makes you much more likely to stick to it.
Thanks so much for reading,
L. x
P.S. Need help sticking to your habits? Try The Journal :-)