You are what you repeatedly do – sorry. You can talk all you like but until your actions match your works and those actions are consistent, you stay the same.
A good habit will help you reach your goals, develop both personally and professionally, and feel fulfilled. However, not all habits are good.
Habits are driven by reward-seeking mechanisms in the brain. They’re often triggered by something specific. For instance, walking past a cafe and smelling coffee beans can trigger you to want a cup. Feeling stressed at work can trigger you to smoke a cigarette.
After a while, habits become a repetitive part of your lifestyle.
Here are some other examples of habits:
· Brushing your teeth after eating a meal
· Putting on your seatbelt when you get inside a car
· Drinking a glass of wine when you get home from work
· Eating sugary or salty foods when you're stressed at work
· Fidgeting with your notebook during a meeting
Forming habits is the brain’s way of being more efficient. As far as the brain is concerned, the more tasks you can complete without wasting time thinking about them, the better.
But you have the power to break any habit that’s not serving you and the power to build habits that do serve you!
For this post, we’re going to focus on how to build a habit:
1. Stack the new habit with a habit you already do
Attach the new habit to a habit that you are already doing consistently! This will make it easy since you’ll just be adding it before or after a habit you are successful with. You could workout right after you brush your teeth in the morning…or you go for a short walk right after you finish up the dishes from dinner, etc…
2. Keep it small and easy at first
Your new habit might be big, but you can start by breaking it up and working your way up to the whole thing. If your goal is to have a habit of drinking 60oz of water a day, you would first start by aiming to drink 20oz a day. Once you’ve created that habit, you can increase your intake until you reach that 60oz mark. This makes the habit more attainable, and you’ll be able “win” a lot sooner than if you aimed right for that 60oz at first.
3. Never miss twice
While you are building great habits, life doesn’t stop! So you will inevitably hit some bumps along the way. A great approach to making sure your habit doesn’t fall off the wayside is to never miss twice. If your water intake slowed down the day before because you were feeling busy, you would make extra sure you didn’t miss your intake today too. If you have a never miss twice mentality, there’s less chance you’ll find yourself a week into missing your habit!
Habit building is a process much like anything else. But it’s so worth it!
I hope the tips above give you somewhere to start and if you feel you want support, habit coaching is totally my jam!
If you liked this read, I have another blog post about habits that includes a free download that shows you how to build the top 10 kick ass habits .
Want one on one coaching? Reach out today!
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