The Importance of Good Habits

byFrenchman88

376 followers

3 years ago

Is this microphone on? Can you hear me in the back?

What do you do every morning when you wake up? Do you have a specific routine that you take part in, or are you still asleep while your brain and body do their own things? A few weeks ago, I got up and started getting ready for work, but things seemed different, quiet. It soon dawned on me that I woke up an hour and a half before my alarm was set to go off! What about at night, before you go to sleep, are there certain things you do? Good habits help to improve our lives in so many ways, yet most people never even realize it. Understanding why good habits are so important can drastically change how you live your life and make it more enjoyable. Below are some helpful suggestions to help with establishing good habits for yourself. Out with the bad and in with the good!

The Piggyback Method

An integral part of establishing good habits is finding ways to make them feel less like a chore and then adding supporting habits to keep you progressing. For example, instead of forcing yourself to go to the gym every day (the big goal), you can do something you enjoy and think of it as exercise. For example, take a walk in a park and enjoy the natural beauty surrounding you; make a note of the quiet if the park is off the beaten path. Next, add a day or two at the gym to do some upper-body exercises. As you begin to feel good about this new healthy habit and you slowly feel stronger and more vital, start looking for simple routines you can do to take advantage of all the equipment they offer. This way, instead of dreading going to the gym, you are actually looking forward to it because you know it will make you feel better. You might look for other exciting places to walk and keep challenging yourself or attend a class at the gym on another day. Doing different exercises and routines keeps your workouts from feeling dull and stale. Soon you'll find yourself achieving the larger goal you set initially by piggybacking smaller goals onto each other. Finally, get rid of all distractions. Be present in the moments you are making changes in. It is increasingly easy to get distracted these days and lose focus. Keep building on your successes.

Create An Environment That Supports Your Goal

It's critical to create an environment that supports your goal. For example, suppose you want to become a morning person and are trying to cut out the snooze button. In that case, you might set your alarm, so it doesn't go off until after your first snooze, assuming you're like me, and hit the snooze 5 times before getting up, and then put it as far away from your bed as possible. Suppose you want to save money for something special in the future. In that case, you could schedule automated "drips" (as a specified amount on a scheduled time frame each month) from your checking into a savings account every Friday; this works out great if you need a few thousand dollars for a planned vacation. The point is that good habits require more than just willpower – they require careful planning and execution. The Journal of Behavioral Medicine published a study that found that success with habits relies on structure, clarity, and support. When people have structure, clarity, and support (along with willpower), they can successfully establish new routines. And this isn't only true for significant life changes; even small things like drinking a glass of water each day can be made more attainable when there's a plan in place. So don't underestimate how much creating an environment conducive to your goals can help them stick!

Make It As Easy As Possible

Every day, we are faced with many choices. From small ones like what to wear to big ones like what I will make for dinner (with the foods I already have because I don't want to go shopping), the decisions we make can profoundly impact our lives. But it's not always easy to make good decisions when there is so much pressure and temptation around us. That's why it's important to create easy habits for us to stick with. When you create a habit and find yourself in a situation where you might want to break that habit, it should be as easy as possible for you not to do so.
My wife found this out when trying to quit smoking cigarettes many years ago. For her, quitting wouldn't work if she didn't create an environment where it was easier for her not to smoke. So instead of carrying her usual pack of cigarettes wherever she went, she always kept a pack of gum accessible. Whenever she felt tempted, chewing some gum would take the edge off those cravings. It also helped prevent any awkward social situations because instead of giving in when friends were lighting up, all she had to do was pop a piece of gum in her mouth! Eventually, through this repetition, these healthy habits became second nature which made it easier for her when the time came that quitting mattered: about a year before becoming pregnant with our first son!

Do Some Journaling

Journaling can be an excellent and creative way to reduce stress and clarify what you want in life. Routinely writing down your thoughts and feelings (hey, look, another good habit!) helps you become more aware of the patterns in your life, which allows you to change them. It can also be a great way to reflect on your past, process events, and work through difficult emotions. Yes, men also have complex emotions, but we often don't talk about them, which is why journaling is so important. Journaling doesn't have to be elaborate or require specific writing skills or knowledge--just write! There are no rules about what should go into your journal; you make the rules in your journal. The goal is simply to let out whatever's going on in your head. You might find yourself writing about things that happened during the day, something you read in a book, or anything weighing heavily on your mind. The point is you can keep new habits in the forefront of your mind and keep track of them. A lot of thought should be dedicated to habit formation. If we are casual about it, we can miss out on many benefits, and the payoff is worth it: good habits lead to better health and happiness!

Start Small And Set Reasonable Goals

Setting reasonable goals is crucial because you don't want to set yourself up for failure. Then you need to establish a plan for how you'll get there. For example, if your goal is to lose weight and your plan is to exercise five days a week, your first goal should be to start exercising two or three days a week. Once you've accomplished that, the following small goal would be four days a week until you reach the desired weekly workout schedule.

But don't wait: Waiting can lead to feelings of guilt or shame which can cause setbacks in other areas as well. So, essentially there's no better time than now to make a change!

In conclusion:

Start slowly and start locally. Take baby steps towards changing habits. Look at the overall habits you want to establish and break them down into bite-sized pieces; doing this one thing will make them much easier to accomplish than if you tried taking on the whole ball of wax. If your focus is on eating healthier, start by learning how to read food labels, decide to move away from canned foods, and move toward fresh whole foods. Soon you will make better decisions because you are informed and know the difference, and suddenly, you have a new habit of eating healthier. The best way to cultivate good habits is by making them part of your everyday life; it's not enough to focus on external factors regarding self-improvement! Make changes from within! Change your thinking now and your body will thank you later.