How to create habits that stick
Welcome 2023!
Are you launching into the new year with a whole host of plans, good intentions and ways to ‘improve’ yourself? Or are you easing your way back in?
I used to start off all guns blazing, racing into the new year with ideas of self improvement and goals, with no clear plan of how to actually achieve them.
The past few years though, I have become a bit better at actually taking my time. I love having a few intentions for the new year, but I take them slow and develop them after easing back into work.
What I’ve come to realise is that resolutions / self improvement, all hang on the idea that you need to change something about yourself.
Firstly, let me tell you, you don’t NEED to change anything about yourself if YOU don’t want to.
However, if there is a habit that has crept in that you’re not entirely happy with, then perhaps the new year is the perfect time to try and ease it out again.
Building fresh habits take time to establish. It’s not as easy as saying ‘I’m going to do this.’ and then cracking on. If only. It’s about taking it step by step. Motivation alone wears down over time, especially if you’re working on something that doesn’t show immediate results. Your brain is programmed into a certain way of being, so changing your approach / lifestyle whatever it is, isn’t going to happen overnight. Your brain needs to be retrained too.
It’s important to be kind to yourself on this front and set realistic expectations on timeframe. Just because it’s taking longer than you hoped doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen. But if it’s not happening, make sure it’s realistic.
There’s absolutely no use in trying to get up at 5am every morning to ‘do a morning routine’ if you’re just not a morning person, or you’re exhausted from the past few years or you need your sleep in order to be able to function. Ensuring that what you’re trying to build into your life is actually achievable for you and your lifestyle right now is so important for getting this change to stick.
Last year I spent months trying to establish a morning yoga practice. I set my alarm every morning, I laid out my yoga gear, I got my mat out the night before, I tried to remove as many barriers to the practice as possible. Weeks and weeks passed and every morning my alarm would go off and I would snooze it and snooze it and then it was time to get up for the day and get on with all the other family routines and the yoga didn’t happen. What I finally came to terms with is that I am not a yoga in the morning kind of person. Once I worked out that I was trying to force something that wasn’t realistic for me, it became a whole lot easier. I now have a regular yoga practice but it’s not daily and it’s usually in the evening. I’m happy with this and it works for me which means it’s easy to maintain.
Think about why you want to make this change, what difference is it going to make to your life and to those around you? Make sure you cement a really good reason for the change to keep you focused. Something superficial isn’t going to be enough in the long run. And if it’s just because someone else told you to, that’s not a good enough reason either.
How do you move through life day to day? You don’t leap everywhere do you, you take steps. One step at a time towards your destination. So making sure that your steps are manageable is super important. It’s those little steps, linking together that make for a greater action. That’s also important because if you take a wrong step along the way (or several) there is less far to go to get you back onto the new path you want to be on. So breaking down what you want to do into manageable chunks is a helpful approach. Make sure you know not only what the habit is you want to form and what are all the steps you need to take to get there.
Next up, think about the habits or changes you already have ingrained in your life. Is there something you can add onto it to start this new habit? Thanks James Clear for this gem! In his book Atomic Habits, Clear says that adding something onto what you already have established is a great way to lay the foundations for a new habit. For example if you always sit and have a coffee in the morning and you’re looking to start a new gratitude practice, you could start by saying or writing some gratitudes whilst drinking your morning coffee.
Lastly, think about how you’re going to celebrate yourself. Quite often, changing or adding a new habit into your life takes time, a lot of time, so waiting until you reach the end goal before giving yourself a pat on the back isn’t that attractive. Is your goal even measurable? If you’re looking to build a new exercise regime for example, when does that become quantifiable as a habit? When you’ve done it for a week? A month? A year? If you miss a day, does that count as still having built the habit?
Keeping track of how far you’ve come on your path and celebrating yourself for points along the journey is really going to help give you the motivation to keep going. Not only is it going to give you encouragement but it will help show you what is possible and keep you focussed when you’re not feeling it.
If you’re planning any new year changes, I hope this blog has been helpful. If you need a quick reminder, here are my top tips:
Be realistic on the timeframe
Be kind to yourself
Check it’s the right habit for you
Have a strong reason behind it
Take things step by step
Add it onto something else you’re already doing
Celebrate the journey not just the end result