We all have personal and professional habits that become enmeshed in our daily lives: Hit the snooze button. Skip the gym. Grab the latte. Commute to the practice. Review the schedule. Diagnose the condition. Educate the family. Prescribe a myopia treatment. Repeat.

As an ECP, your clinical foundations may be solid yet still miss the mark in achieving optimal results; or maybe they’re falling short entirely. If you’re hoping for better long-term results, small, daily habit changes may be the answer. Author James Clear’s best-selling novel, Atomic Habits, offers a practical guide on how to change habits and get 1% better every day.¹

“It is so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making small improvements on a daily basis,” the author writes.²

Using a framework called the Four Laws of Behavior Change, Atomic Habits outlines a simple set of rules for creating good habits and breaking bad ones.

Main lessons in the book include:²

Small habits make a big difference: Improving 1% isn’t particularly notable, but it can be far more meaningful, especially in the long run. Clear suggests that if you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1% worse each day for one year, you’ll decline nearly down to zero. Focus on getting 1% better every day, Clear says.

Don’t set goals. Focus on your system instead. Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system, Clear emphasizes.

Build identity-based habits. The key to building lasting habits is focusing on creating a new identity first. Your current behaviors are simply a reflection of your current identity. What you do now is a mirror image of the type of person you believe that you are.

Clear offers these four approaches to creating good habits: Make it obvious; Make it attractive; Make it easy; Make it satisfying.

But how do these atomic habits translate to your myopia management practice? 

Members of the CooperVision^® Myopia Management Sales team provide real-world insight and fresh perspectives on how small, daily habit changes can help elevate your myopia management care.

Holly Ferrara, Myopia Account Executive, CooperVision

Make habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying (for the patient).

• Make it obvious: Keep the 90-pack of MiSight^® 1 day* visible on the bathroom counter next to the child’s toothbrush.
• Make it attractive: “You’re going to get that edge that you need for sports, all thanks to how awesome contact lenses are.”³
• Make it easy: As a daily disposable soft contact lens, there are no extra steps when it comes to cleaning, disinfecting, or storing – you just throw away the lens each night.
• Make it satisfying: Every Sunday morning, you’ll get points towards a larger prize, adventure, experience, or choose a smaller prize, all for 7 days in a row of MiSight^® 1 day wear.

Kelli Eagan, Myopia Account Executive, CooperVision

Make habits obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying (for the practice). 

• Make it obvious: Place parent education materials by the auto refractor or on the exam room counter, making it bright and visible to catch everyone’s attention. This promotes consistent parent education on myopia control when before, we might have forgotten. 
• Make it attractive: Remind the whole team what myopia control has done for past patients. Highlight wear success stories, and the benefits of getting to see these children grow up 6 months at a time. Ask parents for pictures and Google reviews.
• Make it easy: Have MiSight^® 1 day 10-pack trials ready on the exam room countertop after pre-testing, just in case – and it can save some footsteps later. Daily disposables have made contact lens wear incredibly easy for the past 32 years.⁴ 
• Make it satisfying: Celebrate the slowing of myopia progression†5 when the child went from worsening a full diopter each year to now just a quarter diopter or zero progression with MiSight® 1 day!‡6 Ring a gong, hit a cowbell, or blow a party noisemaker. The staff may also get incentivized $100 for every successful myopia control treatment patient enrolled.  

Jennifer Stark, Myopia Account Executive, CooperVision

Environment design is crucial for behavior change.

• Position the MiSight^® 1 day fit set tray in a visible, easy to access place.
• Make it easy: Place the brochures next to the auto refractor and train the technician on what to say to set the doctor, parent, and patient up for success. 
• Make the insertion and removal training area a space that has a MiSight^® 1 day mat and an iPad queued up to the MiSight® 1 day YouTube channel that stars children teaching other children how to successfully wear soft contact lenses.  

Katherine Ross, Myopia Account Executive, CooperVision

Immediate rewards reinforce habit formation.

• Celebrate first wins: Reward the team after their first MiSight^® 1 day patient has cleared their 1-week visit.
• Set up future MiSight^® 1 day milestones accompanied by small rewards for patient #5 and patient #10. Showcase a Google review mentioning MiSight^® 1 day or how awesome a staff member was with their child. Give the team something to look forward to. 
• Use positive feedback loops: Make sure the whole team knows about the success of various 6-, 12-, and 18-month visits and myopia stabilization.^‡6 Share how happy the children are and what they’ve accomplished at school and in their daily activities.⁷ Highlight how their efforts are making a difference in children's lives.
• Gamify the process: Create a simple scorecard in the breakroom where staff can place stickers for each MiSight^® 1 day conversation and fitting. Offer a reward when they hit a weekly or monthly goal. You miss all the shots you don’t take.
• Reinforce staff engagement: Recognize individual staff members who are succeeding, being creative, and acknowledge their critical role in getting parents to “yes.”
• Make rewards immediate: Don’t wait for quarterly business reviews—acknowledge wins in the moment. Even a daily, “You did so well connecting with that family,” mention can reinforce their habits and keep them consistent the next day.  

Start Making Small Habit Changes Today

Are you feeling stuck in a rut with your myopia management program? As Clear says, it doesn’t matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path toward success.¹ Follow these cues from our myopia sales team, and you’ll be on the right path to achieve this end goal, one small positive habit change at a time.