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Introduction
There's so much hype about creating good habits and healthy routines and you might be wondering, why are they so important?
I'm glad you asked. First, most of our behaviors are automatic, which means that our daily activities are on autopilot, without even thinking about the things we do or why we do them. Second, we have a limited supply of willpower, when nothing forces us to change. These two factors make it really hard to adopt new behaviors and repeat them often enough so that they become habits. No one likes to feel like it's a strain to make a change. This is the reason why taking small steps helps to gradually build a sustainable path to lasting change.
If you think about your daily routine, chances are, there are some bad habits you've been struggling to break. There's also a really good chance there are some good habits you are already doing and you'll continue to without even planning or thinking about them. There are also habits that you'd like to establish but you never seem to be able to dedicate necessary time to focus on them. If this sounds like you, you're not alone.
The truth is that for many of us, there's a big gap between what we want and what we do. And we often get down on ourselves about that. If only we were more disciplined, or had more willpower, or weren't so darn lazy, maybe we would be further along in this or that particular area of our lives. But beating ourselves up is the wrong approach because none of it is a sign of personal failure. We just haven't learned an effective system for turning good actions into healthy habits.
And despite what you may be thinking, creating positive long-term habits isn't that hard. In fact, it can actually be quite simple, as long as you have the right system in place. Let's look into one powerful system for cultivating lasting good habits - and overcoming the bad ones - so that you can begin to bridge that gap between what you want and where you are right now. These 3 simple steps are a great place to start!
Step 1: Choose one change that you want to make that aligns with your natural abilities, and then start practicing it.
For long-term success, it's helpful to start with a habit that aligns with your natural aptitudes and abilities. This is because habits are easier to perform, stick with, and are more satisfying when they are in line with our natural inclinations. A behavior that comes easily to us is one that we're far more likely to repeat until it truly becomes a habit.
This approach also forces us to think more seriously about what skills and behaviors come easily to us and which ones don't. This can be applied to various areas of our lives. Let's consider some examples. Someone with a natural aptitude for learning an instrument, is much more likely to enjoy learning to play guitar than someone who finds the process difficult and frustrating. Taking up a team sport will probably feel much more rewarding for someone who is naturally athletic than someone who was always picked last in gym class.
Someone who eats healthy meals regularly will find it easier to increase the amount and types of vegetables they eat than someone who dislikes vegetables in general and is used to eating unbalanced meals. In practical terms, the one who eats a healthy lunch may opt for a grilled chicken sandwich or a tuna fish sandwich with a side salad whereas the one who does not pay attention to the health benefits of meals may be satisfied with one or two pieces of fried chicken and some French fries -- and count Ketchup as their vegetable :). And choosing a bacon, lettuce and tomato (BLT) sandwich may mislead them into thinking that the lettuce and tomato on the sandwich are enough vegetables for them.
By applying the principle of choosing the change that aligns with your natural abilities, the one who wants to improve their eating habits but only enjoys lettuce and tomato on a sandwich, can add more lettuce and another slice of tomato on the sandwich and focus on this change until they are able to have these vegetables as a side salad in addition to the sandwich. Over time, they may be able to try different types of vegetables and perhaps have a large nutrient dense salad and half a sandwich - if they must - or skip the sandwich if the salad is filling enough. Small but consistent changes will get you where you need to go.
If this approach makes sense to you and you want to give it a try, then you can apply this approach to other areas of your life where a change is needed. Starting with what aligns with your strengths will make it feel more natural and less forced. After a few weeks or months, consider how you feel when you engage in this behavior.
By reflecting on the following questions, you can decide which of the behaviors and activities may be easier for you to focus on and develop them into healthy and sustainable habits:
· Do I like doing this activity?
· Does doing this make me feel happy, healthy, or is it stressful or boring in any way?
· Does it come to me naturally, or does it feel like a chore to me?
· Am I making progress and improving my skills or am I making a lot of effort without much improvement?
· Do I lose track of time when I'm doing this or does time drag?
If you find that you enjoy doing the activity, that time flies when you're engaged with it, and that it seems to come naturally to you, that's a great sign that you'll be motivated to stick with it for the long term.
And if not, that's perfectly fine, too. You can simply decide not to continue with this activity and try another behavior that will help you achieve your desired goal.
Step 2: Break it down into simpler and easier steps
Making a new habit as simple and as easy as possible increases the odds that we'll actually do it. The same is true when it comes to keeping up a new habit. We tend to choose the option that's as effortless as possible. That's why it's so important to break down our ideal habits into smaller behaviors. And as we continue to practice these simple habits day after day, our skills will grow and the habit will become easier until we get to the point where we do it without having to think about it.
This works regardless of which new habit we want to adopt. For example, if you want to be a marathon runner, you might start by lacing up your sneakers and running outside for a couple of minutes, then increase it to 5 minutes, eventually increase your run to 10 minutes. If you continue to shape your new habit in this way, you'll develop the stamina to run for longer and longer periods until you're ready to enter a 5K race. Keep it up, and your goal of running a marathon will eventually become a reality.
Another approach to making your new behavior easy is to identify and reduce any friction involved. Is there anything in the way that could cause you to lose momentum as you work towards your goal? To recognize it, you can try writing down the steps involved in completing the behavior. Then review each step and determine if there are real or potential sources of friction. If so, you can find ways to reduce the friction by creating an environment that makes following the desired behavior as easy as possible. This strategy is sometimes referred to as priming your environment, and there are many ways to use it in everyday life.
Let's look at some examples. Suppose you want to get into the habit of preparing healthier dinners. There are many potential sources of friction here, including figuring out what to cook, the time involved in meal prepping, and the hassle of pulling all the ingredients and utensils you need. Some ways that you can prime your environment to reduce this friction is to create your weekly menu and hang it up in the kitchen, keep bags of produce that have already been washed and prepped in your fridge, and stock your freezer with bags of frozen fruits and veggies. You can also set out all the pots, pans, and utensils on your counter before you leave for work, along with any non-perishable ingredients.
Let's look at a different example. Suppose you get stressed in the morning because you have to rush out to get to work on time. Some sources of friction could be figuring out what to wear in the morning, and your tendency to hit the snooze button. To address these areas of friction, you might choose what you are going to wear the night before so you don't have to waste time making that decision in the morning. You can save yourself time also by putting your alarm across the room so you have to get out of bed to turn it off. As you can see, priming your environment is an extremely effective way to reduce friction and make a new habit easier to practice.
Step 3: Make it satisfying by tracking progress
It's no secret that we are much more likely to repeat a behavior when the experience is satisfying. If the behavior makes you feel good, your brain registers it as something you should remember and repeat. For example, many people enjoy using a mouthwash because the minty taste makes their mouth feel clean and their breath fresh. Some people wear makeup each day because it makes them feel more attractive and more confident about themselves.
Feeling good after performing a behavior is a powerful motivator and greatly increases the odds that we will keep it up. But it's not always that simple, because our human brains are wired to desire instant, not delayed, satisfaction. We evolved to prioritize immediate rewards over long term ones. The challenge is that a lot of the healthy habits we need to make won't give us an immediate benefit or result.
For example, reducing our calorie intake won't result in losing 20 pounds overnight, and practicing Spanish for 10 minutes a day won't make us proficient speakers even in a year. This is why so many people quit a new behavior before it becomes a habit because it's not giving them the satisfaction they want fast enough.
If we want a new habit to stick, we need to feel some kind of immediate short-term success. Luckily, the feeling of success can be something very small, and yet make us feel good, giving us the sense that our new habit is well worth the effort involved. These small immediate rewards are what keep us feeling motivated as we work towards our ultimate goal.
So how can we make our habit rewarding to stick with it for the long term?
A simple method is to find a way to track and measure our habits. Tracking progress gives us clear evidence that we are moving forward, which helps reinforce good behavior and gives us a sense of satisfaction. The most basic kind of habit tracker is getting a calendar and crossing off each day we stick with our new habit. These days, there are tons of options for habit trackers, including smartphone apps for monitoring every kind of habit imaginable. According to Zapier, the 5 best habit trackers are:
• Streaks for iPhone users
• HabitNow for Android users
• Way of Life for gathering lots of data about your habits
• Habitify for planning your day around your habits
• Habitica for people who want to turn building habits into a game
A habit tracker can also be extremely simple and tech-free. It can consist of getting a paper calendar and putting an X on each day you engaged in your new habit. This can give you a real sense of satisfaction that you engaged in your desired habit on a given day and motivate you to keep going.
Other examples of habit trackers include keeping a food diary, a bullet journal, a workout log, or the progress bar on an online course.
Studies have also shown that "people monitor their goal progress with respect to a desired target more frequently when they construe their goal progress in quantifiable terms, and that they find it easier to assess their progress toward such goals." Besides, people who track progress on goals are much more likely to succeed than those who don't. With regards to weight loss as a goal, one study of over sixteen hundred participants found that people who wrote down everything they ate in a food diary lost twice as much weight as the people who didn't keep a food diary. "Tracking is an important component of success in lifestyle change programs".
So if you're struggling to stick to a new habit, finding a way to track progress can give you the boost you need to keep up your habit for another day.
Conclusion
No matter what your circumstances are or where you're at in life, you have the power to create healthy new habits and stop unwanted behaviors. We have uncovered 3 useful strategies for initiating new behaviors and making them stick so that they can become lifelong habits.
Remember that cultivating good habits doesn't happen overnight; instead, it's a process that gradually unfolds over time. With patience and continued practice, small actions will reap big rewards, including a healthier, more balanced, and more fulfilling life. The payoff will be well worth the effort in the long run.
Ready to apply these skills to your weight management journey? I have put together a "Question & Answer Guide to Overcome Barriers to Weight and Fat Loss" that includes 10 dietary strategies you may have overlooked when trying to lose excess weight and fat (the most dangerous of which is the fat inside your abdominal cavity). The guide shows you what you can do to achieve better results in the future. I believe that we can all overcome barriers to weight and fat loss. Remember to apply the three simple steps outlined above. Start with the area that aligns the most with your natural abilities. This will make it easier for you to put it into practice until it becomes a habit. Keeping your new behavior as simple as possible and tracking your progress will increase both the odds of success and a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in your life as you make weight management a sustainable reality! Remember, any step in the right direction is a good step. As you get going, I'm cheering you on!
Rose Kadende-Kaiser, Ph.D./CHC
Online Course Creator and Guide
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