Habits are important building blocks for self improvement. I believe that new positive habits are the way that you can improve areas of your life, whether it is in relationships, your health or even your work. They can be difficult to form at first, but once you experience the power of habits, you know that it is possible to continue adding more to your life.
The scientific definition of habit is “any regular repeated behaviour that requires little or no thought and is learned rather than innate”. Most of us remember to brush our teeth twice a day, or to apply soap/shower gel when having a shower, or even to put our seat belt on when we get in a car. All of these things we pretty much do without having to think and these are all habits. This blog post will give you ideas on new habits you want to form and some good tips on how to form them.
Forming New Habits
How often have you had ideas of habits that you would like to form and never actually managed to form them? The new habit could be as mundane as flossing your teeth, drinking more water or exercising more regularly.
The problem we are all faced with is that it takes an average of 59 to 70 days to form a habit and not all of us are able to remember (or have the will power) to keep practising it every day for such a long time. I see a lot of friends say they want to lose weight or do more exercise, only to do a crash-diet lasting 1-2 months (then back to normal/old habits) or to start going to a gym only to stop after a couple of months.
So what is preventing you forming a habit? Here are some good tips with examples to help you.
Make the Habit Easy
Say you you want to do more exercise but it becomes a royal pain to find your kit, drive to the gym, book your gym session – I think you get the idea! What you need to do is look at what is holding you up from starting to form the habit. Maybe you sort your drawers out so the kit you need is accessible, maybe you look at alternatives to the gym to begin with (e.g. go for a run or do a home workout), or you try and book all your gym sessions for the whole week/month in advance?
Bolt it on an Existing Habit
A good example of this was from a coach of mine who said they really needed to hydrate more every day – especially in the morning. What they thought was ‘how can I bolt this on to an existing habit?’ They realised that every morning they already go downstairs and make cups of tea for their family, and they also get it ready before they go to bed the night before. So to help them hydrate more, they realised they could leave a pint glass with the other cups ready for tea making, and this would act as a reminder to have a pint of water whilst making everyone’s tea!
Reward Yourself for the New Habit
When I wanted to get fit and lose weight I got in the mentality of thinking about it “earning” me some indulgences. I still to this day always think when I exercise during the week I can be rewarded with a takeaway and/or some alcoholic drinks at the weekend. With my eldest daughter I keep reminding her that if she does her GCSE revision she should reward herself with an hour of TikTok – yet to see if this has worked but I thought it was a good idea.
Atomic Habits
Above are just a few examples of how to form habits, but if you want to read more you can try the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. One thing I would also recommend is why not try having a coach to help explore how to form these new habits.
As well as the 59 to 70 day rule I mention above, the other barrier to forming new habits is that we do not get the space to think about how to form new habits. Coaching can help give you that space and also help to explore and question how you can create these ideas for forming a new habit, or even better still it can explore how motivated you are for the new habit and if you should be pursuing it at all.
0 Comments