How to easily create healthy habits that stick long-term
Our life is made out of a bundle of many habits. Just think about it, you brush your teeth every morning – habit, you drink your coffee/tea every morning, you lock the door, drive to work, change your clothes when you go to bed, that’s a habit as well. Almost everything we do is a habit, and a habit is automatic and painless.
When you want to improve productivity, focus, reduce stress and be healthier but you struggle, there is nothing better that creating and nurturing a good habit, which comes automatic, it’s fast and easy.
However, to create a habit is easier said than done right? Well, don’t jump to conclusions, there are ways to easily create and maintain a habit for a long time, to make it part of your life routine.
Before you continue, chose a habit you’d like to create, whether it is health and fitness related, business or personal.
These are 3 of the steps I take my clients through when we have a habit we want to create transform as part of The 6 Guiding Principles of a Healthier Lifestyle:
1. Start small
It is important not to just throw yourself into something new. Your body and brain need time to learn the new habit, it’s a change for them. It’s like jumping into ice cold water when you’ve never even experienced a cold shower. It’s all about adaptation.
Let’s say you want to go for a run 5 days a week for 1 hour. Start with a run 1 day a week for 30 min, or even 10 min. After 4 runs, go up to 2 runs a week or stay with 1 a week but add 5-10 more minutes. Simple and painless.
You will see how easy and comfortable you build this habit and stick to it.
You can apply this even in an office environment or personal goals.
2. Focus on the tasks
When you make tasks part of your daily routine, you build a habit that sticks. Instead of focusing on the end goal, create many small daily or weekly tasks which lead to the end result. Then you only need to get those small, fast tasks done, to tick them off the list. That’s it, slowly building to the end result.
3. Design your environment for success
Why make life difficult for yourself? Design your environment so it helps you with your tasks and ultimately your goal or habit.
For example, let’s say you want to take trash out every Friday morning when you leave to work at 5 am. Why not place the bag in front of the door an evening before so at 5 am you don’t run around the house for the bin bag. You will have to pick it up to open the door (if you want to leave the house of course). You will build the habit of taking the trash out every Friday morning.
Again, you can apply this to anything you do, whether you want to create a new habit or to changing a habit
Want to go for a run first thing in the morning? Then get your kit ready next to your bed.
Want to have your own home cooked lunch at work? Prepare something the day before and put it in a plastic container ready to just throw it in your bag. Put a note on the front door so you don’t forget to take it with you.
All simple and painless.
Do you have a habit or tasks you want to implement into your life? Try these 3 steps and let me know how it works out for you.
She works with entrepreneurs, men and women, and re-engineers how the body functions to run like clockwork. This is done through building lasting foundations and a fit, strong and powerful body through Natural Movement in the Natural Environment.
Her mission is to challenge the status quo to enable people to reach their goals. This is done through building strong, lasting foundations in the natural outdoor environment; reducing the risk of injuries and educating people on the power of the fundamentals of Natural Human Movement™.