| You are the sum of your habits. The only way to change yourself is to change your habits. It takes some focus and work to build a habit, but once you build one (or break one), your mind is free to work on something else. You have literally rewired your brain. Wellness is about having healthy habits in all areas of our lives — our health, finances, emotions, careers and relationships to name a few. By focusing on small habits, you can change your wellness and your life for good. So how do you build a healthy habit? Here are six tips. 1. Believe it. Pick a habit you are excited about and believe in. If you’re not completely convinced you want a particular habit, it’s much harder to master it. A good test to see if you really believe in a habit is to ask yourself if you’re ready to keep it for the rest of your life. You’ll be more successful over time if you build smaller habits you actually intend to do for the rest of your life. 2. Shrink it. Pick a habit that is small and easy. If you want to eat more vegetables, start by eating one a day. If you end up eating more than one vegetable, great! The important thing is to keep your expectations small until this habit is ingrained. Starting small can be liberating because it’s so simple and doable. Only work on one habit at a time. It’s tempting to try to change everything at once, but focusing on one habit at a time increases your chance of success. 3. Trigger it. A trigger is something that sparks a behavior. To start a new habit, you need to find a good trigger to initiate the habit. The best triggers are things that already happen every day. For example, getting ready to leave your home is a trigger. Every time you leave home, fill up a water bottle. Filling up the water bottle becomes the new habit. Simply seeing the water bottle can be another trigger to prompt you to drink more water. |
| A note about triggers and breaking bad habits. You can break a bad habit by removing what triggers it or replacing it with a good one. For example, if you want to stop eating donuts in the morning, change your morning route so you don’t drive by the donut shop. If you drink soda in the afternoon when you feel tired and want to stop, take a five-minute walk instead. Identifying the trigger for a habit you want to give up is the key to replacing it with a better one. |
| 4. Prepare for it. You would never go on a trip without preparing for it. Building a new habit is similar. If you aren’t prepared, your journey will be much less enjoyable, and you may not even make it to your destination. Being prepared for the journey will make all the difference. So do the things you need to do to set yourself up for success: go shopping, clean house, research, plan, plan for obstacles and plan how you’ll restart. 5. Track it. Each time you work on creating a new habit, track it. It will help you see your progress. Building a habit can take time, so be patient with yourself. Just keep working on it until you feel confident it has become part of your regular routine. If you stop for some reason, start again. Your next attempt will be even more successful. 6. Be it. In order for your new habit to be something you do for the rest of your life, it needs to be part of your identity, of who you are. If you stop eating donuts, to keep it up over the long term, you need to believe you’re a person who rarely eats a donut. A habit is never a habit for life until it becomes part of who you are. Everyone’s path to wellness is unique. You need to find the path that will work best for you. Pick a habit you believe in and work on it until you’ve mastered it. Repeat this process day by day, week by week, for the rest of your life and you will go places you never imagined. Strive for progress, not perfection. Enjoy your journey! |