STICK WITH YOUR HABITS

Habits are not born overnight. You can’t tell yourself, “Hey, I’ve got an idea! I’m going to become an early bird, starting tomorrow morning!” That’s an impossible lie you’re telling here yourself. You need to practice daily and you need to hold on tight. I myself have tried, I myself have failed. But that’s it, I try and keep on trying and fail again and when I fail, I learn from those mistakes. So yes, I still have faith and I simply know I can change my habits to become a better person. No, I’m not naïve. I can do it, and you can do it too!

Changing habits is a basic skill, but definitely a hard one to learn. It may rebuild your whole life from head to toe. It can change your personality. So frankly, it’s a life-changing skill, which truly makes your life (completely) different. If you stick to your newly chosen habits, your life can be transformed and become ridiculously amazing – you can become (at least partly) who you always wanted to be. How happy or unhappy you are is a result of your habits. Are you successful? Well done, you tend to have good habits! What you repeatedly do forms the personality that you portray.

With the end of a year, when the 8^th bottle of eggnog is almost empty, many people write down their New Year’s resolutions. Then, on January 1^st, the action starts. However, after 2 weeks, we’re back to our old routine, clearly forgotten about our recently made resolutions. Ouch. So, why is it that we give up so easily and so soon? We are NO quitters, are we? No no no, we’re certainly not, but we want to make big changes too fast, which isn’t feasible in, let me say, one month. As we can’t see the results, we give up eventually. We constantly forget that ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY! I believe you must practice a habit everyday for a month and stay as focused as possibleRemember: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – AristotleIf you want to create some new habits (starting for example with your New Year’s resolutions), I’m giving you some ideas how to do it.

Note: Don’t do all at once, otherwise you’ll be over-motivated by trying to do all and you’ll find yourself quitting, again. Give it a time, will ya?

      1. MAKE SMALL CHANGES

      Changing your life in small steps, one at a time, is much more likely to succeed than making various huge changes and trying to do those in a brief period of time. Plus, it’s way easier to start with a small change, to start simple. A small habit may become your new “normal” and that’s exactly what you want. You don’t want to run for 45 minutes the first day you decided you will become a runner. You won’t probably be even able to make it happen, thus you’ll be disappointed with yourself and you will rather quit. STOP! Just run for a few minutes or go jogging. Just take on your shoes and go outside. Over time, you’ll get better and better - because down-to-earth heroes go for mini change.

2. ONE CHANGE AT TIME

So, you decided to make 10 tiny changes. You say to yourself: “Well, isn’t it easy to start a new habit?” It certainly is, but sticking to it is rather challenging. One step at time. Only. If you want to achieve having 10 new habits in the end of the year, try doing one habit a month. Make a chart and write down which new habit you’d like to create in which month. Perhaps you want to start with getting up early – work on it in January! Meditate? Starting February! Exercise 3 times a week in March! And so on and so on. Pick one habit to build up at a time. Seriously, keep that in your mind.

3. REMINDERS

Lots of reminders. Have them everywhere around you – on your bedside table, on your refrigerator, near your computer, in your wallet, etc., so you won’t be able to forget. Reminders: the trigger that propels your behavior.

4. LOG YOUR PROGRESS

If possible, make it an event you can’t miss. Write it down to your calendar, and preferably, write down the exact time. Log and MARK IT OFF! You’ll feel awesome afterwards. You’ll see!

5. GET SOME ACCOUNTABILITY

      Tell your friends and ask them to check in on you or to join you in your journey. After all, it’s always better in two, So, GET A BUDDY! Another useful tip is to publish your goal to social media or write a blog post about it. Plainly, report on your progress.

6. REMOVE DISTRACTIONS

If your goal is to eat healthy, remove tempting junk food that is distracting you from your house. Or if you want to work out, give your phone to another room and switch off all other devices. Make yourself unavailable for that one damn hour! Meeting with a friend that has the same goals as you have, may truly be advantageous, too! You’ll less likely skip the gym session if you go with someone else.

7. REWARD YOURSELF

This may be the most fun part. Celebrate completing your habit and celebrate it by rewarding yourself – after all you put in the effort! Rewards can come in whatever form you enjoy. It may be drinking a coffee, taking a hot bath, watching a movie or simply telling yourself, “Good work!” Give yourself some credit and enjoy your success. An action needs to be repeated for it to become a habit, so that means you can repeatedly reward yourself – WHOOO!

8. WATCH YOUR THOUGHTS

“I can’t do this, it’s too hard. I’m tired to do it now, I’ll just wait for tomorrow. It’s OK to cheat…” We all know these kinds of self-talks. We all are making excuses. You need to be conscious and stop thinking those negative, discouraging thoughts, if you don’t want to fail. And you would fail hard if you go the negative way. Think positively.

Tip: Add a “BUT” to the sentence: “I’m busy, BUT this may help me to become relaxed” or “I haven’t eaten sugar in a while so I deserve it, BUT having a fruit instead is beneficial to my body.” You know what I mean.

“We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.” – John Dryden

Are you going to try some of these? If so, tell me about your progress. I’m here for you, guys!