Living a positive and fulfilling lifestyle begins with creating and maintaining healthy habits. It can sometimes be difficult to break your bad habits, but small changes can have a profound effect on your life over time.
No matter what your previous bad habits are, making the conscious decision to create healthy habits will positively affect your mind, body & soul. The first step in changing any behavior or habit is first understanding what you’re doing (or not doing) that may be holding you back.
If you want to see different results, you can’t keep doing the things you’ve always done. Your life is a product of all the large and small habits you create, so if you want to make a difference and see results you must change the habits that are not helping you get what you want with new ones that will.
Don't know where to start?
Here are my 12 tips to creating healthy habits. I have also linked the video below from the It Takes Grit Podcast.
Healthy Habit Tip 1: Commit To 30 Days
You have to start somewhere and 30 days is a great place to begin. Tell yourself I am going to do x,y,z and COMMIT TO IT. During this time, determine your why. Why are you doing this, why did you start? Knowing your why will help keep you focused on days that you might feel like quitting. The time is going to go by whether or not you do anything, so you might as well make the best of it.
Once 30 days go by, commit to another 30. All of a sudden you are three months in and CRUSHING your goals. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Changing a habit is hard work and requires trial and error. You won’t get it perfect and it’s important to stay positive and keep going. You can’t fail if you just don't quit.
Healthy Habit Tip 2: Make It Daily
Implementing a daily routine will naturally create structure in your life, help you become more efficient with your time and will aid you in prioritizing what is important in your life. Instead of making multiple decisions on a daily basis, you will already have a game plan in place which will create smooth flow to your day.
Every morning I wake up, have my banana caramel shake, my chai tea and aloe water with lemon. I don't even have to think about it anymore, it just happens! Check out my blog on how to have an effective morning for tips on how to start your day in the most impactful way.
Healthy Habit Tip 3: Start Simple
When you begin training for a marathon, you don't start by running 20 miles a day. The same concept applies when you are trying to create healthy habits. Have you heard that slow and steady wins the race? THIS IS TRUE! Make an action plan to achieve the habit or behavior you’re working to change. Make sure these steps are measurable so you can track your progress. For example if your new habit is to workout, how long will this be for and how many days a week? Then you can go back and see if you achieved it.
Starting small & not overloading yourself in the beginning is key to creating habits that will last long term. Setting small measurable goals along the way will build up your momentum and overtime will increase your efforts. When changing a habit or creating a new one, it’s important to remember to start making changes slowly.
Healthy Habit Tip 4: Find A Buddy
Having accountability is essential with anything in life. Whether you are trying to get your summer bod or write a book, you have to have someone who you check in with. We are much more likely to stay on track when we feel like someone else is depending on us!
The BTES Community is a perfect place to find a buddy to help you stay accountable. Together we share our goals, struggles and triumphs and always have each others backs. Finding someone who will cheer you on and keep you accountable along the way is a great way to stay focused on achieving your goals.
Healthy Habit Tip 5: Replace Lost Needs
Choosing a substitute for a prior bad habit is a smart and easy way to keep yourself from going back to it. All habits we have are in our life, are there for a reason, whether it be good or bad. Your bad habit is providing something to you so completely doing away with it can be difficult. Instead of eliminating it, replacing it is a good way to keep yourself from returning to it.
If you are a late night snacker on chips, cutting out the snacking all together might seem like an impossible feat. Next time, instead of the chips, snack on something healthier, like berries. You are still fulfilling your late night craving, but this time with a healthier option.
Healthy Habit Tip 6: Be Imperfect
A lot of us feel too scared to go after our goals because we don't want to fail. Well guess what? The only way you can fail is if you don't try at all! I've had plenty of moments in my life where I just felt like throwing in the towel and giving up, but new things were just around the corner.
When I was starting my own YouTube channel, things were hard. People were asking a lot, and I wanted to meet their needs, but I was also afraid of falling flat on my face. It was a struggle and something that I had to learn and grow through. It wasn't perfect in the beginning, but it has evolved into sometime amazing because I stayed close to the fire and figured it out along the way.
It is OKAY to not be perfect at something. You are an individual and different than everyone else. No one else is YOU and that is your gift! You cannot compare your chapter 1 to someone else's chapter 10. Do you find yourself comparing on social media and feel like you're not perfect enough? Read my blog on how to break free of comparison.
Healthy Habit Tip 7: Remove Temptation
Removing temptation plays a massive role in creating healthy habits. It takes self discipline and is something that you will need to work on, however removing temptations and other distractions will only get you closer to achieving success.
If you are someone who likes eat lots of chocolate, if you don't buy it, it won't be in the house for you to consume. BOOM! Its that easy. If you are a smoker and looking to quit, don't hang out with people while they are smoking. If you are trying to cut back on your alcohol intake, skip the Friday night at the bar. Removing yourself from a scenario where you will be tempted, is the first step to fully removing that temptation from your life.
Healthy Habit Tip 8: Associate with Role Models
It doesn't need to be a celebrity or popular figure - this person could be a teacher, friend, family member, coworker, whoever! Find someone who has a vision for the future and is actively working towards their ultimate goals. Associating yourself with a role model sets a positive example for achievement and keeps you grounded in your ambitions!
You all know I absolutely love Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn and Les Brown. I listen to them daily to remind myself how they think so that I can copy that mindset. It takes years of listening, practicing and doing to the work to change your state and mindset. Over time it becomes more natural to wake up full of positivity and more simple to be able to crush your goals.
Healthy Habit Tip 9: Know The Benefits
When you are trying to create healthy habits it is important to realize the amount of good benefits that will come along with them. Getting adequate amounts of sleeps provides a productive & focused day. Eating healthy gives you energy to perform at a high functioning level. Drinking lots of water cleanses the body and helps deliver nutrients to our cells.
Knowing the benefits to your healthy habits will guide you to stay on track and remain focused on why you started creating this habit in the first place. Feeling good about yourself and your daily choices is a great way to boost your self- esteem all while taking care of your body for the time you have on this beautiful earth.
Healthy Habit Tip 10: Know The Pain
Jim Rohn (another one of my favorites!) said “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”
When you make the choice to change something, you must implement self discipline. It is not always going to be easy, I can tell you that, but it will always be worth it. Have you ever started your new years resolutions and by week 2 you have already failed? How did that make you feel? Was the fried food worth it in the end?
Knowing the pain of failure will help you succeed. Regret is a huge burden to carry around and no one wants to be living in the past like that. Bad habits over time will eventually lead to regret. Good habits practiced daily will also build up over time but have much more positive feelings and outcomes associated with them.
Healthy Habit Tip 11: Form a Trigger
When creating healthy habits, you are going to be presented with temptations, its going to be easy to fall off and say "I'll start again tomorrow", when this happens you need to snap yourself back on track by creating a trigger.
A trigger plays a crucial role in forming new habits and breaking old ones. It can be absolutely anything that you identify with your habits. It is the event that kicks off the completion of your healthy habit. When you connect a habit with a trigger, our brains begin to strongly associate the two & overtime our habits will just be happening naturally.
Healthy Habit Tip 12: Do It For You
I saved the best for last.. When creating healthy habits DO IT FOR YOU. You are the most important person in your life!. You are worth it to show up and get the most you can out of life.
We create boundaries and limitations on ourselves for no other reason that fear which is just a figment of our imagination. You deserve to have a limitless life, just do the work to create it and enjoy all the amazing things this world has available to us.
I would love to hear some new habits that you have created for yourself and how you are doing sticking to them.
Love,
Rebecca
xoxo
Listen to my podcast on it here:
safa
April 08, 2021