Maintaining good habits, like a well-balanced diet,
a regular exercise routine, and a normal sleep schedule, can help you live a longer,
happier, and healthier life. But while we know what to do to improve our health, developing
these habits and sticking to them isn’t always easy. Hi viewers and welcome back to Bestie!
It can be tricky to adapt to a new routine, and it’s often tempting to return to old ways if
we don’t see immediate results. Luckily, there are several steps you can take to build a habit
while making sure it sticks for a long time. And in today’s video, we will tell you what
they are. From starting with small adjustments, reminding yourself why you’re making a change,
being patient, rewarding yourself to being accountable and more.
Find your motivation: Habits are far more likely to succeed if they are based on
intrinsic (internal) motivation, rather than extrinsic (external) motivation. For example,
you want to create a new exercise routine. An intrinsic motivation for doing this might be
wanting to be healthy. An extrinsic motivation might be wanting to lose weight so you think you
look more attractive, although we think you’re pretty perfect the way you are.
To give yourself the best chance of creating a sustainable habit, take a good,
long look at your motives before you even start. You might find that you
need to shift your thinking slightly. Or notice that this particular habit is
something you’re doing for someone else, rather than for yourself.
Start with small adjustments: Some folks want to do everything in a day which ends up getting them
nothing in the end. Instead of fixing everything in a small amount of time, it is better to make
small, yet effective adjustments gradually. This way your mind can handle these positive changes.
For example, if you want to lose weight then the best way to do it is not by switching
to a healthy diet overnight because this can cause various health issues,
when not done correctly. The reason this works is that it takes a decent amount of willpower,
determination, and practice to develop a new habit. So, it’s better to start small.
Focus on one goal at a time: You may have a laundry list of habits
you want to change -- eat less junk food, do yoga daily,
go to bed early. But taking them on all at the same time may set you up for failure.
If you try to transform everything at once, it tends to be very destabilizing. Work on one
habit a month instead. It may seem daunting to change several habits in several months,
but if the change is important to you, it will have a big impact on your life.
Identify all triggers and obstacles: In order to develop a good habit, you need to know all
the triggers and obstacles. If you don’t do that, then you are likely to face failure.
There will certainly be bad days along the way,
but that doesn’t mean that you should slip back into old bad habits to deal with them.
For example, you quit alcohol but had a bad day at the office,
so you run to the wine bottle to help you get over it. This can destroy all the
effort you’ve put in so far. Find a better way to alleviate stress like exercising,
meditation, or something productive that helps reduce stress and cheers you up.
Remind yourself why you're making a change: Having motivation is key when trying to change
your behavior. To keep yourself motivated, ask yourself why you want to make a change in the
first place. Thinking about your long-term goals and the results you will one day achieve will help
you power through that 6 a.m. gym session, especially when you feel like giving up.
Make sure that what you're trying to change is something YOU really want to do,
not something you feel you SHOULD do. You're much less likely to accomplish
a change if you don't want to do it, and it's not keeping with your values.
Connect new habits to usual routines:
Incorporating the small, attainable habits into your daily life creates a new routine. Making
these changes and doing them every day teaches your brain and body a new pattern of behavior.
Eventually, the goal is to have these behaviors become automatic so you don’t
even have to expend energy to get yourself to do them. Once they become automatic,
these associations will make it easy for you to do certain things. These include practices
like starting to wipe down the bathroom counter every time you brush your teeth or
wash your dishes after every meal – without even nagging yourself to do it.
These associations, repeated day after day,
start to become automatic. And that's a huge part of the concept of the habit. Remember,
a habit is something that is hard to give up, so if certain behaviors are suddenly
part of your everyday life and happen without much thought, they are officially habits.
Make habits time bound rather than outcome bound:
It can be tough to stick with a new habit if you feel unmotivated. If you promise yourself
you’ll read 20 pages a day, but you keep getting side-tracked and you miss the mark,
you’ll feel bad about yourself for being unable to stick with it.
In situations like these, it’s helpful to give yourself a block of time to work on your habit
rather than focusing on the outcome you’re working toward. For example,
instead of reading 20 pages per day, consider reading for 20 minutes per day. This way,
you’ll be more likely to do it to completion, which will lead to a shot of dopamine in your
brain. You’ll feel good about yourself, which will make it easy to stick with your new habit.
Working with a time-bound approach can help you achieve your goal and form the habit of
maintaining them, all while feeling productive. And isn’t that better than trying to clean and
organize the whole house in one fell swoop and feeling like a failure because you couldn’t do it?
Be patient: Learning to be patient is perhaps the most critical skill of all. You can make
incredible progress if you are consistent and patient. If you are adding weight at the gym,
you should probably go slower than you think. If you are adding daily sales calls to your business
strategy, you should probably start with fewer than you expect to handle. Patience is everything.
Do things you can sustain. New habits should feel easy, especially in the beginning. If you stay
consistent and continue increasing your habit it will get hard enough, fast enough. It always does.
When you slip, get back on track quickly: Top performers make mistakes and get off track
just like everyone else. The difference is that they get back on track as quickly as possible.
Research has shown that missing your habit once, no matter when it occurs, has no measurable impact
on your long-term progress. Rather than trying to be perfect, abandon your all-or-nothing mentality.
You shouldn't expect to fail, but you should plan for failure. Think about things that are likely to
get in your way? What are some daily emergencies that are likely to pull you off course? How can
you work around these issues? Or, at least, how you can bounce back quickly to get back on track?
You just need to be consistent,
not perfect. Focus on building the identity of someone who never misses a habit twice.
Reward yourself: Giving yourself a reward after performing the action that you’re
trying to automate reinforces the habit loop in your brain,
so the habit is more likely to stick. The best way to get yourself to start
exercising is to reward yourself with a piece of chocolate once you’re done.
Eventually your brain will enjoy exercise for exercise’s sake. But first you have to trick
your brain into creating the habit loop. That is, trick it to develop the neurological patterns of
a habit– by giving it a piece of chocolate after each exercise session as a reward.
Be accountable: Declaring your new habit to others is a great way of getting support from
people around you. And adds a healthy dose of accountability to your situation too.
Being accountable might involve enlisting the help of a dedicated
accountability buddy that you check in with on a regular basis. You can also go
public with your new habit to your wider circles of trusted family and friends.
External support is especially helpful when you’re building habits that require lifestyle changes,
such as changing your diet or your exercise habits. If you are around
other people who have a similar lifestyle to you,
asking them to support you will make it easier for you to maintain a new habit.
While these tips can help you develop habits and stick to them,
it is equally important to give up certain bad habits as well.
Learn more about unhealthy habits that you should give up by watching:
6 Morning Habits That Cause Unwanted Weight Gain
Or
12 Eating Habits That Are Making You Unhealthy
So go ahead and watch one or both the videos if you want to give up daily unhealthy habits. What’s
that one habit that you would like to develop? Let us know in the comments section below!