How to create Successful Habits

‘I want to start meditating’, ‘I want to start eating better’, ‘I want to start exercising more’.

We have all said these things, time and time again. But haven’t seemed to succeed in them, or at least haven’t been able to keep them up. Why? Why is it, when the going gets tough or when the new year roles round and we have made our new goals, only 8% of people haven’t given up by January.

Personally, from many books read and podcasts listened to on this subject, I think that it is because most of us dont know how to make and stick to these new goals or new habits we want to make. It may not be because we dont have any determination, it simply may be because we don’t know how to make and stick to Successful habits.

We say we want to eat better, but at the start of the year (or whenever you decide to start) when we make this goal we still have food in the kitchen that is going to tempt us, we haven’t made a meal plan and we haven’t told anyone our goals so they can hold us accountable. Same with if you want to increase your exercise, we haven’t got proper gym clothes/shoes or we haven’t mapped out specific times and days we are going to do it.

What we need to do, is create an environment where these new habits are going to succeed. We must change our environment to make are new habits/goals stick. So how do we do this?

“Habits will only work if you create a world that makes them easy”

Lewis Howes

Using the examine used before, we must clean everything out of our kitchen that isn’t going to help this new goal thrive, stocking it with only what you are going to need. Also, and this one is going to be hard, you must not get into situations that we know are our ‘triggers’. A story that was told to me once, really shows this: She was telling me how much she wants to improve her diet, but every-time she went shopping with her flatmates she always ended up buying foods that didn’t make her feel good. I told her that maybe next time to not bring money with her so she isn’t put in that situation that she felt like she had to buy food.

All she had to do, was understand what habit of hers was stopping her from achieving this new goal, and just changing a small part of it, and it worked!

Have a clear vision:

But before we do anything stated above, we must first know exactly what we want to achieve. This is done by writing out a step by step guide (click Here for a goal setting template), on what it is we want to achieve, by when, what it will look and feel like when we get to the end, and then you can think about what we need to do to to get there (like clean out your kitchen, buy running shoes etc).

Baby steps:

Obviously the goal will most likely not be able to be achieved if its going to be to run a marathon next month if you’ve never ran 1km. My answer to this is that you only try that habit for 3 minutes everyday. Why I say this, is that most people can’t stick to new habits, because they have old ones that take up to much of their time. To create a new habit like going for a run everyday is going to be difficult. So this may sound weird, but its been proven that If you do a habit for only 3 minutes each day, at the start, then you are more likely to stick to this habit because it’s slowly becoming a part of your usual day/routine.

It doesn’t matter what you do after that 3 minutes, it only matters that you just start. For example, that first three minutes would be to put on your running shoes and stepping outside. I can promise you, that you will want to go for a run once you just step outside that door. The hardest thing is just to start. So think of it as just doing this for 3 minutes.

Don’t be so hard on yourself:

Most importantly, don’t beat yourself up if you make a mistake or lose the habit for a couple of weeks. That doesn’t matter at all. You started it once and for a reason, doesn’t mean you can’t start again. If you get angry at yourself, let that feeling go as soon as it arises, pick yourself back up and keep pushing towards the better you.

So invest in your health today, go plan that goal/new habit you have always wanted to achieve, create that step by step guide to get there. Remember that you must create successful habits around your goal. And get excited about it! You are growing into the person you’ve always wanted to become.

So much love x