Beginning a healthy journey is never easy. Turning one’s life around is a task that requires a lot of work and effort to make happen, as many already know. For that reason, a lot of people tend to give up before reaching their goals. The main thing that brings along a change in life is building new healthy habits while leaving behind the damaging habits. Of course, this is easier said than done. However, there are ways to help you and anyone else who wishes, to create new and healthy habits without falling off the wagon. Here are effective ways to build new habits:
Start With Something Easy
Big changes don’t happen overnight, so don’t expect to create all these habits in a short period of time. Start off with something so simple that you can’t say no to. Even if you find yourself with a lot of motivation, it’s best to begin with smaller things that are more sustainable in the long run. For instance, if you want to start exercising, exercise for just one or two minutes today. Want to start eating healthier meals? Make one healthy snack today. Starting off small gives you more of a chance to sustain this habit over longer periods of time.
Repeat Every Day
A critical aspect of habits is consistency. In other words, if you want a habit to stick, you need to do it every day. Doing something twice or three times a week will make it harder for you to form a habit around it. The more often you do something, the faster it becomes a habit.
Have A Backup Plan
You might fall off the wagon or fail every now and again. That’s natural. After all, we’re only human. It’s okay to have setbacks, you just need to find ways to get back on track without allowing setbacks to kill your momentum. The key here is bouncing back as soon as possible without deteriorating any further.
Commit For Thirty Days
Give yourself a set amount of time – 30 days in this case – to try out this habit and build it up. Look at it like a trial run. Once you pass the set amount of time, you might find that it was easier than you expected and want to continue. Maybe you’ll find out how to maintain it for longer than you planned.
Get Rid Of Temptation
This is mostly relevant for habits that involve you cutting something out, like junk food or smoking. It’s important to get rid of anything that might be too tempting and cause you to fall off the wagon. Out of sight, out of mind.
Write It Down
Writing things down hold more power than we tend to realize. It might not actively do anything to write down a goal. However, seeing it in front of you does make it more real. This will help you focus more on the goal you have in mind and give you more motivation to reach it.