How Daily Dancing will Make your Habits Stick

Who knew that you could use your ability to do the electric shuffle, macarena or the floss to achieve your goals? Science did and now you do too...

Around this time of year, we set annual goals. We make resolutions. We take advantage of the “Fresh Start Effect.” To embrace a fresh start is a great thing. But we are at risk of believing we need to commit big and hustle for a fresh start to stick around. We fall prey to the idea that a fresh start means doing more in the same amount of time or going from zero to perfection is required.?

?? here is real life from a real-life working mom

I have been pursuing a goal for several years to exercise more and lose weight. I have not met the goal. I struggle to make time to exercise. I might try something for a few weeks, but when life happens, I can’t figure out how to add it back. Honestly, I have enough to do with my day-to-day most weeks. But then I feel guilty about not exercising or eating well. My back has started to hurt again, and now I don’t know if I can even do anything.??

When you have failed to meet a goal for changing your lifestyle, one or both of these are true:

1. You don’t really feel deeply excited, inspired, or energized by the goal of “getting healthy” or “losing weight” You feel like you’re banging your head against the same wall trying to figure the same thing out year after year.?
2. Your goals have been repeatedly squeezed out by work, the kids, cooking, and cleaning, so there is a huge mental block about even starting again, especially since it will be the first thing to fall off your schedule.

Your inner self can’t see how the ending of this year will be different because all the problem players are the same year to year.?

The “Getting Healthy” Problem Players List

• Finding the time
• Finding the energy
• Consistency?
• Overwhelm
• Injury
• Motivation

But there is a way to overcome this problem list that do not involve having money for a juice cleanse or lipposuccion.

The Mental Residue that Holds Back Habits

Your actions and patterns follow your beliefs. Your core beliefs set your outcomes. Those core beliefs don’t change when the calendar rolls into a new year. If you believe that you are the type of person that can’t lose weight no matter how you eat, you are. If you think you won’t be able to walk for one mile without taking a break, you won’t.

When you touch tree sap or a child covered in lollipop spit, you have a sticky residue on your skin. You know it is there, and it bothers you until you wash. Similarly, what you say to yourself and your way of thinking about yourself leaves a mental residue. Because we can’t see mental residue like chocolate sauce on a two-year-old, you allow it to stick around for longer. What’s worse you might be so accustomed to it you might not even notice it. That residue can start to influence what we believe is possible deep in our hearts.?

To make any of the following suggestions on habit change work for you, you need to start believing you are important. You are worthy of your own time. That is why the beginning of the year brings the potential hope for a change, despite knowing the problem list. Your soul and body longs to be cared for. Figuring out how to invest in yourself is vital to you and your family now and in the future. You cannot be outside of health and live a full and fulfilling life. Taking care of yourself so you can be present for your people is a necessary life skill and one of the biggest that you can pass along to your kids.

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The How-To on Habits?

Emotions create habits, not repetition or frequency. Seriously, that is the science behind habits sticking around. Not just do it 67 times, and then it will stick forever like a unicorn sticker to your nice furniture.?

At the beginning of the year, the thought that you need to shove good habits into your schedule creates an environment where you will simply run out of time. You won’t have time for that perfect workout because the meeting ran late. You won’t have time to pack a fantastic salad for lunch every day this week because one of your kids has to get a cavity filled on Monday, and the extra time there made it hard to prep for Tuesday. But you will have time to wake up feeling guilty tomorrow. You keep habits by feeling good, not by feeling inadequate and guilty.?

When you are kind to your body, you feel better. With each season of life, what helps our body to feel better changes to a degree. If you have young kids who wake you up at night, getting up early is not kind to your body. Rest is the most underrated aspect of physical health in our current day.?

Getting adequate rest is huge for your physical wellness and can also decrease the number of calories you intake daily. On average, if you get less than 7 hours of sleep a day, you will eat 300 more calories than someone who gets 7 hours. What does an extra 300 calories a day mean??

A 160-pound woman getting 7 hours of sleep and then decreasing her sleep to 5 hours per night will be apt to gain an average of 8 pounds. Conversely, the answer to losing those pesky 8 pounds might be as simple as getting 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Our bodies have internal clocks. When we stay on our phones or watch a show at night, we make it harder for our brains to shut down?and get to bed at a good hour. Rest may give you the energy to start implementing some of the changes you haven’t been able to make stick for the past several years.?

How to Make Habits Stick-Tiny Changes Big Celebrations

Habits are like plants. If you plant them in the right spots, they will naturally grow. The problem is that we usually try to plant a 60-year-old tree in a location meant for a sapling.?

60 Year old tree allegory= Routine you would see work for someone who has spent years tweaking it for their lives.

Sapling allegory= routine that is just starting out. It is tiny and requires some love but has the ability to grow it into a 60 year old tree

I am a habit research nerd. I am constantly looking for new books and articles about habit formation and how habits translate into new routines. I have gotten something out of everything that I have read, but by far, the best one for starting from scratch is?Tiny Habits?by B.J. Fogg. Dr Fogg is a researcher out of this school you might have heard of named Stanford. In his research, he has only seen three things that create lasting change: Have an epiphany, change our environment, or change our habits in small ways.?

Create a constellation of habits, tiny in size but big in impact. BJ Fogg, PhD

The key to tiny habits is that you look for your natural time gaps. Small pieces can slowly add up to a significant impact. Most people make a huge deal out of exercise and feel they need to commit large chunks of time to exercise. However, at its root, exercise is just moving your body.?

The goal of any exercise professional is to get you to move your body more often. I went to school to get my doctorate in moving people who have injuries or don’t move well. I can tell you that most of the time when exercises don’t stick, it is because someone is being pressured by an outside force to do more or believes negative thoughts about what exercise ‘has’ to be.?

Exercise does not mean sweating for an hour. But it does mean meaningfully moving your body more than you sit. You have the time to do something small here and there. The problem that most people have with small is that they believe the lie that small is not enough of a change. You are focusing on the fact that you can’t consistently find an hour instead of focusing on the time you have.?

Let’s say right now you are not an active person. How do you scale up from nothing to something you want to do in the future? Let’s say your goal is 30 minutes of cardio three times a week. You can start tiny by putting on your running shoes when you get home, walking up and down your stairs two times, or walking to the big oak tree and back. Something that takes you less than two minutes.??

Maybe you have been getting in some extra movement, but sugar is your Achilles heel. What if you drank a glass of water each time you got a sugar craving and then closed your eyes and listened to see if your body still wants that sugar? It might be quieting your thoughts can allow you to listen to what your body needs at that moment instead of your craving.

Urgent things shout. Important things whisper. Listen to the whispers. Ken Groen

How Dancing Can Help Habits Stick

Good things come to those who read, especially in the case of this post. I am FINALLY getting to what in the world dancing has to do with habit formation. If you do not celebrate your small successes, you will probably never stick it out to the big changes possible over time. Celebration helps create momentum, and it literally changes your brain. Seriously.

A best-selling book on leadership,?The One Minute Manager,?discusses how you need to catch people doing things right. It could be life-changing if you start catching yourself doing things right. You need to celebrate what you want to see more of. Cheer enthusiastically for yourself. When you drink a glass of water, instead of eating a donut, do a dance. Did you just do two countertop push-ups while waiting for your coffee? Do a dance, pat yourself on the back, or say out loud that you are proud of yourself.

When we default to criticism instead of celebration, habits can’t stick. Grow your sapling into a tree with dancing, jigging, the macarena, or the floss. Celebrate what you want to see more of. The best is yet to come when you celebrate your wins, regardless of how tiny they are.?

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DIG (Get Deliberate, Get Inspired, Get Going) Deep Action Steps:?

Get Deliberate: Write down a celebration that you feel comfortable with doing in public and at your house. In public randomly breaking out into dance might not work for you like it does in your bathroom. Consider a dramatic hair toss, giving yourself a thumbs up or typing on your phone, “I invested in me” or ”I am impressive.” Find you phrase.

Get Inspired: Is there someone who made changes that you want to see in your life? Call them up, read their book, watch their YouTube interview. Write down WHY you want to do a change similar to theirs with a pen. Your story isn’t written yet. Start writing a new sentence with a Tiny Change.

Get Going: Want suggestions for tiny habits you can add in during the day? Check these out??

When I have a sugar craving, I will drink a glass of water and ask my body if it still wants sugar.

After I get home, I will put on my workout shoes and walk to the end of my driveway.?

After I take a bite of food I will ask how my body how it feels. Do I need more? Am I full? Am I thirsty??

After I hit end on my zoom meeting I will do two dumbbell presses with my brand new obnoxious pink dumbbells.?

After I flush the toilet I will do 60 seconds of calf stretching while washing my hands.?

I will roll out my exercise mat/ yoga mat on the floor after I start the coffee maker. Each time I get up to use the bathroom I will do one down dog for 10 seconds on my yoga mat.?

After I hit start on the coffee maker I will do two countertop push-ups

After I come back to my office after lunch I will do two air squats

Before I watch a show on Netflix I will do a plank until my body starts to shake

After I hit the 30 second button on the microwave I will reach for my toes until it beeps

When I get into bed at night I will do a figure 4 stretch for 30 seconds on each leg

After I plug in my phone at night I will reach down for my toes for 30 seconds

After I notice I’m feeling rushed, I will take 5 deep breathes breathing in for five counts and breathing out for five counts