Let’s be real. Creating new healthy habits for ourselves can be quite challenging. It’s hard to start and stick with something when it’s not what we’re used to doing. If you’ve tried to start a new healthy habit but have had trouble sticking with it, this blog is for you!
I want to talk about forming new healthy habits. As I’m sure many of you know, it’s the small, day to day consistent things that we do that truly make the biggest impact in our lives. You don’t grow muscle overnight, you train a little each day to see a change. You don’t see your skin go from bad to healthy in one day. You have to be consistent with taking care of it each day to eventually see it glow. What we make habit each day has a huge impact on our lives. But creating those healthy habits can really be a challenge for many. I’m going to talk about a couple reasons why creating a healthy habit can be so challenging, and then I’m going to talk about a solution you probably have never heard before.
The first reason that healthy habit creation often fails is that we haven’t given ourselves a big enough reason why. Why do we want this? Why is it important to us to change in this way? If we don’t fully believe in our “why”, then we’re going to have a very hard time sticking to whatever habit we’re trying to create. The reason for this is, developing a new habit is hard. It’s never easy to change our patterns or ways of doing or seeing life. It requires forging a new path in our brains instead of using the already well-worn one we’ve been on for years that is no longer serving us well. This forging a new path thing is exhausting. So, if we’re not fully convinced that it’s worth it, we’re most likely going to just hop back on that easy path when the going gets rough. But if we 100 percent believe in our “why”, then we will be willing to stick it out and do the hard work because we know the result is well worth it.
So I challenge you to take some time, right now if you have it, or later when you do, and think about your “why” for a habit you are trying to form. Here’s an example: say you are trying to get in shape. If your “why” is just a blanket statement of, “to be in shape” it’s going to hard to stick to. So ask yourself WHY you want to be in shape? How will it benefit you? What will life look like down the road if you don’t follow through? Maybe you realize your deeper “why” is that you want to get in shape so that you can be there to take care of loved ones. Or maybe you have a dream of hiking a mountain somewhere and your “why” becomes to experience the view from the top. Whatever it is for you, make sure you have a big enough “why”.
A second reason we may fail to form new healthy habits in our lives is that we aren’t consistent. Habit formation requires being consistent. If we are on and then off and then on and then off over and over again, we’ll never really form the habit. According to research, it takes between 59 and 70 days to form a new habit. Guys, that’s 2 plus some months! And in this time especially, it’s crucial to be consistent.
The first way to become consistent is to carefully plan and decide the “when”, the “where”, and “for how long” piece. You can’t afford to just “wing it” each day. Trust me, it won’t happen. You need to think through your schedule and find a time that you can be consistent at each day. Decide on a place and be consistent with the location. And finally, pick an allotted amount of time you will give to it each day.
Okay, this second way to become consistent and successful at habit creation is something I’ve personally never learned or seen anyone else do. But it’s something that I’ve done for years and have found it to be extremely helpful. It’s how to deal with the inevitable, out of our control, things that pop up and keep us from working on our habit formation even when we allotted a specific time and place for them. How do you manage those? Do you have to just start over?
What I’ve done in these times, is, I’ve created a placeholder for my habit so that, even though I couldn’t do it that day, the habit doesn’t get lost. What does that look like? That looks like, say again, you are working on getting fit and creating a consistent habit of getting up in the morning and working out. One morning, you wake up, and you’re sick, you don’t feel good. Usually, you’d just call in sick and stay in bed and forget about your habit formation. You’ll have to start it up again after you are better. OR, you can create a placeholder for your habit by getting up, putting your workout clothes on, and spending your allotted time gently stretching or doing yoga instead. This way, you take care of your body and you also don’t lose your habit formation. You see how that works?
So keep this in mind the next time you are trying to form a habit but something out of your control comes up in the middle of it. Think about what you CAN do in that space to keep a placeholder for your habit. Maybe something comes up that takes your time away that you needed to form your habit. What can you do mentally to keep that placeholder? If you don’t have time to practice your guitar, can you go through your chords in your mind? Anything you can do to keep that habit formation in your day, even when it can’t be in your day, will be extremely helpful to you as you form new habits.
Okay, so let’s summarize what we talked about here:
It’s the small, healthy, daily habits we form that create the most impact in our lives
Two big reasons we fail to create new habits are: not having a big enough “why” and not committing enough time to or being consistent enough with our new habit.
We can create “placeholders” for our habits when things out of our control keep us from practicing them daily.
Have you tried to start a new habit? What helped you succeed or what kept you from succeeding? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you.
If you love journaling as part of your intentional lifestyle, I’ve created some amazing printable daily journal prompts that are super helpful for bringing focus and intentionality into your day. It’s free and you can find them by clicking here!
Comments