Something u do without even thinking or a routine of behavior you do automatically, that’s a habit. The problem is that most people have a habit for bad things and this works of course not in their favor. That’s why it’s important to know why it could benefit you more by changing your bad habits to good habits. The potential of a
But the hardest part is of course to train yourself or to transform your mindset from one habit to another. That’s why I found a few things to help you to get started.
Trough experimenting with different styles on how to do it, I’m going to share my own opinion on how to do this. By disciplining myself to following these rules I succeeding in starting a right amount of new habits.
How to start a new habit.
Keep going for 30 days. It’s around 30 days that is needed for starting a new habit. If u can keep on committing to thirty days it will be easier to advance and go further on the habit from this point. If someone is really motivated, 30 days isn’t that big a time.
Don’t start to big. By keeping it simple and small at first, you will have more motivation to keep on going with your habit. It’s easy to get over-motivated at first and then be able to see that it is too much at once. So start small and simple and this will help a lot.
A clear vision or why. Having a clear vision in why u want a habit can encourage u more into doing the habit. If u have a vision of how or why you want a specific habit, you will have more percent of actually succeeding in your new habit. If u don’t have a vision why, you won’t have the motivation to start or won’t hold it out until actually making it a habit.
Keep track of your progress. Keeping track of your progress can help u. I used journaling where I crossed every day I actually woke up in my example and us can even work with a reward system if that boosts it for yourself. In my personal opinion this worked really great for me. You can always just keep on going for the habit until you reached your finish for the habit you wanted.
Arranging a system around the new habit. If u start by making a schedule around your new habit and actually make time for it. It’s much easier for yourself to work on your new habit.
Find someone to do it with you. If u find a friend or someone you know that will go along with you. You will be motivated more easily. You can also motivate each other by keeping up with the habit.
Accept you own failure. No one ever is perfect enough to be able to start it and be consistent all the time, but that okay. It’s important to keep on going and believing in yourself that you will be able to do it.
Remove temptation. By rearranging you own environment to something that would trigger your new habit would also make it a lot better for yourself.
Run it as an experiment. With experiments are no failures, there’s only results that you weren’t expecting or you wouldn’t have thought about but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Know the benefits. By searching online for the benefits of the habit it can give you more reasons to work on the habit or keep you more motivated because you know what’s waiting for you.
Know the pain. Also be aware of the down sides of the new habit. Giving yourself realistic information about the downsides of not making a change can also motivate yourself for making a chance.
Change your environment. Of course keeping something in your house that will attract to break your new habit. For an example you can throw out unhealthy food if you are trying to eat healthy.
Of course these are mere simple tricks that help u in succeeding with starting a new habit. It’s the willpower from yourself that will lead you to the top and help you succeed with starting the habit. As I already said, you don’t have to be afraid to fail. The only battle you have to overcome is the battle against yourself, your own mindset.
At the moment there are hundreds of different habits people can use to improve his or her own life. That’s why I’ll talk about, what I think are, the most popular habits and why you should consider trying one of these.
Different types of a habit
Getting a good routine. The human body performs bests when they have a schedule we can follow every day. Getting a good routine early in life will help you later if u stick to it.
Sleeping and eating can also help because u will wake up around the same time and feel tired around the same time so it could be easier to go to sleep earlier.
Shorten you sleep schedule. If u are already sleeping like 7 to 9 hours, please skip this because in my opinion that’s good. But most people are sleeping 9 to 11 hours and feel exhausted. This can be because you sleep too much and you will be likely to be less productive the hours after you wake up.
Also shortening your sleep schedule will allow you a few more hours in the week to work on yourself or just for your own free time.
Waking up early. Waking up early was in my own opinion a lot better for myself. In the morning before school or work I had like 2 hours for myself. I could work on school, I could write more blogs or I could even workout. Different reasons why you should wake up early are available here.
Of course you are saying now like: “but then I’ll have to get to bed earlier”. Most people are less productive in the evening then in the morning so it’s really a thing you should decide or as above you could shorten you sleep schedule.
Try to read regularly. Reading has a lot of benefits. It can build new words to your vocabulary, make you more creative but also expand your imagination.
Any physical activity. Physical activity is something we need to stay healthy. Developing a good exercise routine or habit is something that will definitely boost your motivation towards other habits or things in your life.
It’s also good to find something you, as an individual, find fun to do. There are a lot of different activities you can participate in, alone or in a group.
How to break current habits
Of course people want to change their habits but there are some tricky things to it when you want to try this. I’ll try to explain as best as possible but the other side is your part.
The cue
First you will have to find the cue. This is the thing that triggers your habit and it could be anything. It could be a place, a time, a person, an object you see or even an emotional state and for changing or breaking the habit you will have to find your own cue.
The routine
After finding the cue, you will need to find and put down your own routine or the behavior itself. For some people it could be that they walk into their kitchen and automatically open their cookie shelf and take something to eat but the point is that you should find your own habit or pattern of behavior.
The reward
The reward is also important, well maybe the most important part of the whole habit breaking. The habit is there most of the time so we can get the reward often. Of course finding out what that reward is can be pretty tricky. That’s why I recommend when you feel the urge or craving for your habit you experiment. Try to do something else and try to feel what activity feels the same.
You can try to go for a walk instead, try chatting a bit with friends or maybe eat something healthy instead of a cookie. Finding the reward can help you by seeing what you really want and if u know what u want, you know how to work towards your craving.
It is important to be busy with one or two habits at a time
Succeeding in one habit isn’t 100% successful. That’s why keeping yourself busy with 3 or more habits is even harder and makes it a smaller percent of succeeding. Being busy with 1 or even 2 is already really hard, of course that’s my opinion, but not impossible. When you start trying to improve in your own healthy life it could be difficult to resist the urge to make even more changes in your own personal life.
Making it yourself as easy as possible. The smaller the steps you take towards the habit you have inside of your head, the easier it will be for yourself. This is a journey for yourself, maybe even improving yourself, and it definitely doesn’t matter how long it does take you so what I’m trying to say, take your time. You choose your own pace that you are walking this journey.
Overnight success
Of course all over the internet it is being said that success can be something that happens overnight. That’s maybe possible for someone that found a big pound of gold in the first night they went looking but that percentage is so small it’s not even worth talking about. Success is gained by constant hard work and perseverance.
People that stay committed to what they want and what they like to do will succeed but some things take more time than other things.
The same thing is like perfection. Perfection is just an illusion that is being seen on social media but all that is just to make it look like that. Starting healthy habits is a bigger process and is something
One’s reason ‘why’ should relate to one’s individual values
Your reason ‘why’ you should change or begin a new habit should be your own reasons. Of course when you do things like this and you do it for your own good. You will be more motivated working towards your new habit. Find your own individual reasons and keep them in your mind. Make sure all the changes you make are also aligned with the values you value.
Of course there is the possibility to write down your ‘why’. Put it at some place where it’s visible for you or where you see it every day so that you are being reminded why you are trying to change. The fact that you are trying to change is in most cases a good thing. Most people are actually afraid of change and want to stay with their natural thing, that thing where you feel comfortable with. Breaking your own comfort level can feel weird at first but you will thank yourself later.
Research about your new habit
Of course for every habit there are a lot of benefits. It depends from person to person how effective those benefits could be. There are a lot of other people that have of course already tried working to or are still doing that specific habit. Not all people write something about it online. The people that did put it online they shared their experience and hoped to help other people by understanding what it did for them and how it changed their life.
Of course people online will maybe also has had a trigger in their life which made them want to make a change in their life. You could maybe relate to the person and feel more connected to the habit and have more motivation. Not all habits work as effective as other people and this is why you should research which habit has what benefit.
Using the knowledge to replace your unhealthy habits to healthy habits with greatly reward you in life. If you can start to identify common triggers that set off your unhealthy habits, you can start to manipulate the loop by introducing a new action that will breed a similar reward.
Search for a habit group
Searching for a person or group can be really motivated in many ways. Having someone to hold you accountable to what you do or what you say is really powerful. You don’t want to be the guy that lets your friend or group down, or even appear to not be able to follow through with your own intentions or the groups intentions.
We can achieve a lot more together than we can alone. You will get stuck with different habits if u don’t ask for a helping hand. You will see much more progress and will enjoy more of the process together. Making changes to please other should of course never be your big reason ‘why’. It can certainly be an added motivator. So you can check with a friend you trust if he wants to join in and you keep each other up to date on your progress.
Of course by helping someone else working towards a habit isn’t only good for them but also good for yourself. It can also accelerate your own growth by understanding the habit forming process. If u give advice to someone it’s pretty hard to do the opposite.
Be honest against yourself
When starting a new habit it often happens that you had a day it just didn’t work. But that’s fine but be honest against yourself. If u are crossing off the days you successfully worked towards your habit at those moments. Just be honest against yourself and don’t cross it off. You didn’t do it that day but you tell yourself you will do it tomorrow again.
If you are doing it with a group and are keeping them up to date. You’ll pick yourself together the next day and start working again. It’s a continues process so if u skip one day in the month, it’s not a big deal but always keep on working towards your goals.
There’s also the possibility for making a back-up plan if something would happen or stands in your way. In this scenario you already have other options to continue on so you won’t have to stress to find other options. This way you are working ahead of yourself and are prepared for different scenarios.
Habits are here for an opportunity to change yourself. Find a ‘new you’ but everyone you shouldn’t feel like you have to find a new you. You might feel the constant pressure to grow or to become a bigger or better person. You shouldn’t always be looking for the next obstacle to climb over. People should also take breaks and enjoy the things they are doing and appreciate the moment itself.
Your own triggers
If u find it difficult to remind yourself for working towards something you can make your own triggers to begin working. You can put reminders on post-notes on your desk. You can put reminders in your own phone. Maybe make arrangements the day before so it’s easier to get started. By creating a healthy environment it will be a lot easier to get started of to think about it.
A different trigger can also be you do something casual in your life right now like everyday you do some working out already. Instead of doing this casually everyday now you tell yourself you can only do it if u succeeded in working towards your habit for that day. You make something you like to do a reward and kind of push yourself because that’s what this is all about.
Of course when you didn’t work towards your habit that day the consequence is that you can’t do that fun thing you do normally.
The journey
It’s important to be enjoying the process and not be obsessed with the end results. A habit isn’t something to only see the end results. A habit is more learning yourself more and how you are in the present moment. You are changing yourself step by step. If u only see the end results you won’t be able to focus on the present and how you are changing maybe right now.
Investing time in yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself. Investing time in yourself can boost your mental health a lot. Again this is process that will take a time so don’t be disappointed if you don’t see results in 4 days but be patient and it will be a great reward for your mental health. If u are mentally more stable, it’s a thing to give that positivity to other people. They are around you and will catch glimpses of your positivity.
Of course this is your own journey and you can follow these tips or you can do the exact opposite. These are a lot of tips that helped not me alone but also my friends and family with starting a new habit.
