How to Stick with Good Habits?

Revamping your lifestyle is not easy, especially in the beginning when you decide to step out of your comfort zone and new habits seem alien and awkward to you. After passing this phase of uneasiness, you will begin to feel motivated and energetic, however, a few weeks later, there will come a point wherein your old habits will call you back and you will feel exhausted and unenthusiastic, at this point, discipline will help you move forward. Let us begin from scratch!

Firstly, choose 9-10 good habits that you need to embed in your life for the next 21 days like fixed sleeping/waking time, healthy diet, exercise, reading 15 pages in a day, etc. After doing that do the following to stick with them and live a better life: -

Analyse the Reason Why:

Self-realization is very important so that you can eliminate or work on the root cause of your unhealthy behavior. Understand and address the reason why you are unable to wake up at 5 in the morning and then work on it.

Maybe this is because you sleep late at night then address that problem first to achieve your goal. Start self-questioning to build a better relationship with yourself remove the cause altogether as habits are interrelated. This will also help you in analyzing whether your goals are realistic or you need to break them down into smaller steps.

This also works for tasks that might require a longer time period to be accomplished but you fail to provide that, hence, you do not succeed. Hence, many organizations also use time tracking or employee monitoring software to analyze productivity.

• Choose habits that reinforce each other

It is true that habits are interlinked and not discrete, hence, align them in such a way that they work for you perfectly. To exemplify, if you want to exercise and also wake up early, align both of them together so that you get a purpose to wake up, or waking up early is only possible if you sleep early. By doing this, your transition period will become smoother than ever.

• Write down your habits in your schedule

By writing down your habits, you are documenting your ideas in the real world. By scheduling your habits, you can keep track of them and know instantly when and where you are falling.

The best time to prepare a schedule is at night before sleeping for the next day so that you can prepare your brain subconsciously to complete the tasks stated in it. Always put difficult tasks and habits that require more energy in the first half of the day, like, put exercise in the morning and reading in the second half.

Giving each task appropriate time is also crucial while preparing a schedule just like being on time. It may seem basic but it has the power to disrupt your schedule all at once and bring down your motivation level to zero, hence, be precise.

It may seem a little complicated in the beginning, however, with time, you will be able to schedule everything within 10 minutes. You can also start creating templates for repetitive tasks like sleeping, meal timing, exercise, cooking, etc., and then edit the unique ones into it. This plays a major role in sticking to the habits and the majority of the people fail because of the inability to schedule them properly.

• Track your habits

Through scheduling you will come to know whether you have fallen off track or still doing well, however, you can be a little creative with this and track them in numerous ways. You can state all the habits on a whiteboard in your room and then erase or cross them one by one as you complete them. This is an activity for your brain that will give a sense of accomplishment and keep you motivated. The process is very satisfying and fulfilling.

• Engage the people around you

People can be engaged with you and your habits in two ways, first is where you will inform them that you are interested in cultivating good habits and the second is where you tell your plans to others and seek moral support.

This can definitely work in your favour, for example, if you tell your mother that you are going on a healthy diet, she might start stocking up more fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods, if you tell your, friend that you have started working out, they may accompany you and become your gym partner.

Sometimes, having someone by your side can give you a push to keep going when you are down or when you feel demotivated. Having people supporting you will never let you feel that you are alone, your struggles will be their struggles and you can help or compliment each other in tough times.