Habit Transformation

Develop healthy, life-long habits that will leave you looking, feeling and performing at your best.

Consider your intention with new habits. Why are you doing it? Does this reason feel important to you, connected to one of your deeper purposes? Understand your reason and set an intention.

Now make a commitment to yourself – be all in and vow not to let yourself down.

Now we’re going to make the habit as small as possible. I’d like you to consider how to make this habit as easy as possible.

Create a space to focus on the change you’re going to make.

If this habit is to be a priority, you need to set aside some time. When will you do it? Figure out when is best for you.

Make this a priority and set aside at least 10 minutes to do this habit – even if you’re only going to do it for a minute to start with.

Consider this a sacred 10-minute space, which can’t be violated by checking things online or other busy work. During this time, you’ll only focus on your habit.

Set a Trigger - A trigger is something already in your routine that you’re going to tie the habit to.

A new habit, to become more automatic, must be bonded to a trigger. By repeating the trigger-habit sequence over and over, you create a heartbeat rhythm that becomes ingrained in your mind.

So before you start the habit, find a trigger that you already do each day. If you don’t think you have a routine, you might write down everything you do in the morning and see if there’s something on that list that you do every day.

Some possibilities are morning coffee, opening your laptop, getting to work, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, breakfast, driving home, going to bed.

After you’ve picked a trigger, write out a reminder on a piece of paper and put it near where the trigger happens e.g., near the coffeemaker if the trigger is drinking coffee.

To start do the smallest version of the habit, which doesn’t limit you to doing more, but is the bare minimum you need for success. For the next week or so, do the habit right after your trigger. However, remember to keep it as simple as possible to overcome any resistance.

As you do your habit, try to mindfully enjoy it, and then congratulate yourself on sticking to it!

You Are What You Eat Habit

Habit Challenge: Record what you eat

For the next two weeks, I challenge you to "record what you eat". There is a lot of value in the actual act of recording what you eat.?It’s a behavior that truly takes seconds to minutes a day to do, however, each and every time you pull out your app or diary, you remind yourself of your healthy living desires and strategies.

It’s through regular and conscious effects and reminders that new habits are formed, and any behavior that helps you to keep your goals and intentions at the forefront of your busy mind is a good one.

The point of this habit is awareness, not change. What I don’t like about food logging is when it becomes punitive or judgmental. Food diaries aren’t there to tell you what you are or aren’t allowed. A food diary is simply a source of information (data collection) to help inform your decisions, as well as an incredibly powerful habit-building tool. So this is NOT a calorie counting habit.

Recording what you eat isn’t meant to replace your dietary strategy; it’s there to supplement it. Whether you’ve been intermittently fasting, following a Paleo or low-carb plan, or even just doing your own thing, food logging, regardless of its imperfections, oversights, and shortcomings, may be just the thing you need to figure out why you might be stuck.

How Can I Make This Habit Easy?

The first step is to scale the habit to something you are 90-100% confident you can do for 6 days of the week. You might want to track specific meals (just breakfasts, lunches, or dinners) or decide that journaling on paper is easier than an app for you.

Have one day off per week from completing a habit.

This is very important: whatever you pick, it should only take you one to two minutes to complete each day.

It is important to review. How was Day 1 of your new habit?

After completing your habit for the first time, I suggest you to answer these two questions:

• What did I do well today?
• What did I learn today?

These questions are so important that I would like you to reflect on them every day.

The truth is, the most overlooked factor in building new habits is bridging the gap between what you want to do and the behavior that you're trying to make automatic.

You've got to close the loop between your intention and your behavior and it's as simple as answering those two questions.

Reinforce Habit

There’s a tendency to treat a habit like a chore and rush to move on to the next thing you need to do.

Notice the rush to move on and instead, try to slow down and enjoy the habit.

SMILE ?

Enjoy this learning process and reflect on the sense of accomplishment when you’re done doing the habit. The more you can give yourself this positive feedback during the habit change process, the better, as positive reinforcement is what keeps you doing the habit over time.

Adjust the habit. If you didn’t struggle or skip the habit for more than a day over a week, I recommend that you lengthen the habit. If you’ve struggled, keep it the same or make it even easier.

For example, if you’ve just been writing down what you’ve ate for breakfast, then extend that to lunches too.

Never make too big an adjustment so that it becomes too difficult.

This slow change process of expanding the habit a little at a time helps overcome the resistance of the mind to change and discomfort.

Keep up the great work...you got this!

#habitsofhealth #habits #newhabits #transformation

Pam

P.S. The Stop Snacking Habit is up next week!