Today we are going to be talking about building healthy habits and I’m going to share with you tips on how you can start building those habits right now. Before we get into the tips. I want to talk a little bit about what I mean by healthy habits. So a habit is a behavior that we repeat regularly, sometimes without even thinking about it.
Think about your day. What are things that you do in your day every single day? So for me, in the morning, I get up, I brush my teeth, I get dressed for work, I make coffee. Yes, coffee is a habit in my morning. I know, you’re not really that surprised! These are all things that we do every single day, so we’re repeating it regularly.
Some habits are really, really good and some habits are maybe not so good, but today we are going to be focusing on building healthy habits and how we can start right now. The biggest thing that you have to remember when we’re going to start talking about habit change is that it takes time. It is also hard and we have to be mindful about our intentions. You have to really focus on building that habit in order for it to stick. Otherwise it’s going to just go by the wayside.
Think about your typical day and try to think about what healthy habits you have in your life right now. This could be anything from you exercising regularly or having a habit of always eating vegetables. You could also have a habit of drinking a ton of water in the morning before you have your cup of coffee. That’s actually a really good one, so you should jot that one down.
#01 Start Small
You cannot start with a complete change in your lifestyle. I know that’s typically how people change their diet or make lifestyle changes, but the problem with that mentality is it gets really overwhelming and fast. Once things become hard and overwhelming, we quit. Or, for the most part, we quit. If we put too much on our plate all at once there’s a really good chance you’re going to get burnt out. Then you’re not going to want to continue with it.
So we want to start small. Let’s talk about what that really means. If we’re talking diet wise, starting small might look like you’re making changes to one meal at a time. I know that’s not typical.I know when people start diets, it’s usually a complete overhaul of everything that they’re eating and if that works for you then I mean by all means continue. I am not here to tell you that you’re doing it wrong. I’m just saying that a lot of times when it comes to dieting people will buy into the diet. They will follow the strict plans. It’ll last for a few weeks or months and then slowly but surely it starts to fade away and our actual habits start coming through again.
The problem with these is we’re not building habits that we are going to continue for the rest of our life. We’re looking at it as this is what I have to do right now to get the goal I want and then I go back to my normal lifestyle. But that doesn’t work, right? Think of how many diets you’ve started. You’ve lost all of the weight that you wanted, and then you ended up back right where you started again. It’s really no one’s fault, right? We didn’t build those habits to be lifelong.
#02 Set realistic goals.
We have these grand goals and that is fantastic and I don’t want to take that from you.
I want you to dream big, but when we do that, we sometimes set ourselves up to fail. Let’s go back to the weight loss example. Let’s say you decide you want to lose 50 pounds, good for you, that is fantastic. Realistically, you’re looking at about 1/2 a pound to a pound of weight loss a week. So you’re talking almost over a year to lose that 50 pounds. And that’s no problem. The problem comes in when somebody says I want to lose the weight and I want to do it by Christmas, which is 3 months away. Well, now you’re really not setting a realistic goal.
So what happens when we set these grand goals that aren’t so realistic is we start off on our journey. We’re doing really, really well. Then all of a sudden we realize that we’re probably not going to make that goal in that time frame. And we say, well, what’s the point, I might as well just give up.
Whenever we’re starting with a healthy habit change, we have to make sure that our goals are realistic. Otherwise you’re just setting yourself up to fail. I want you to think about it. Whenever you’re going to start on some kind of journey, think, is the time frame I want to do this realistic or am I just super excited?
It’s OK to want to accomplish your goal quickly, but we want to set our mind set up for success, and that’s why we need to be realistic when we’re setting our goals.
#03 Setbacks
I want you to understand that there are going to be setbacks. No, I’m not miss negativity over here. I’m miss realistic. There are going to be times when you are trying to accomplish this goal and you are trying to build this healthy habit and you completely go off track. It’s going to happen. Be ready for it now, it happens to everyone. Progress isn’t completely linear. There are going to be highs and lows to every type of change that you are going to try to make.
You have to remember, with habits, it takes a long time to build them. We need to understand that it’s not always going to be perfect. That doesn’t mean you need to throw in the towel. It just means you need to start again, and if you can commit yourself to continuing to just start again, that’s where you’re going to find your success.
I know everybody is always looking for that magic answer, right? And honestly, there really isn’t one. If I had to come close to finding a magic answer it would be to start again. As long as you’re willing to start again, you will be able to build healthy habits because you’re being realistic and understanding that setbacks are going to happen and it’s OK. We might feel down on ourselves for a minute, but we need to work past that.
You are more than just a set back. It is a mistake. You are not a failure. You lived your life and that’s it. Sometimes things just don’t always work out the way we expect. So when you find yourself trying to build a healthy habit and you notice that you’re going off course a little bit,
realize it’s normal and be intentional about getting back on track.
Remember I told you before that we have to be mindful about our intentions and this is where that comes in. We have to understand the highs and the lows and we have to be willing to get back on and try again.
#04 Healthy Habits
I keep talking about these healthy habits and I threw some at you in the beginning but I want to come back to that because the whole purpose of this episode was to give you tips to get started today. Some of you might be sitting there going, OK well I have an idea of how to do this but I don’t really know what healthy habit to start with. Really, it could be anything.
Maybe your journey needs to have more exercise, so maybe your healthy habit could be you’re going to get home from work every day and walk around the block. Maybe it is nutrition. So you can start with just adding in vegetables or more vegetables at each of your meals. Or you can have vegetables for a snack. You can also focus on eating lean protein. Pick something small that will help get you towards your goal. If it’s your mindset that you’re trying to work on, maybe you start a gratitude journal in the morning. As you are drinking your coffee first thing in the morning, you sit and think about three things that you’re grateful for that you have in your life, or three things that you were grateful for that happened the day before.
If you feel like you need more guidance, and I totally get that, I have a free resource to help you build healthy habits. There’s a cute little tracker involved to help get you started and keep you on course. I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I have a cute little accessory to go with my goal, it makes it a little bit more exciting. Definitely go check out the show notes because that freebie is there for you and I want you to be successful.
And that is it, my friends. That is all I have for today’s episode on building healthy habits.
I really hope that you are able to take some of these tips and resources and really use them to get started on building your healthy habits.
