Build Good Habits

For better or worse, habits form our everyday lives. They influence our thoughts, our behaviours, and our actions. Here’s how to create a happier and more balanced life through the power of positive habits

Why build habits?

Developing good habits is crucial for your personal growth and success. Consistent routines help streamline daily tasks, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.

Good habits foster discipline and self-control, enabling you to stay focused on long-term goals, despite obstacles. By cultivating positive habits, such as regular exercise, healthy eating, or effective time management, you can enhance your physical, mental, and emotional well-being, ultimately leading to a more fulfilling and balanced life.

Excellence doesn’t happen in an instant. It happens over time, and as a result of what we do repeatedly.

Think long-term

We become the result of our habits over time so when it comes to making positive change, we need to think long-term rather than quick fixes.

By envisioning the future benefits of consistent actions, we can stay motivated and committed to our habits. This helps us when we face unexpected challenges because we understand that it’s all part of the process, and that long-term, we can still achieve our aims.

Think ahead in terms of months or even years. Imagine how you’ll look and feel a year down the line if you commit to exercising three times a week.

The compound effect of these habits are the real and most effective ways of implementing positive change in your life – and it’s the consistency that’s the key.

Understand your motivations

By delving into the reasons behind wanting to cultivate specific habits, you can establish strong foundations for change.

Understanding the ‘why’ will provide you with a very genuine reason for sticking to your good habits. Whether it’s a health goal or a financial goal, understanding the reason behind the habit can help fuel persistence and consistency, even on the toughest of days.

To understand your motivations, reflect on your own personal values and find out what’s really important to you. Discover what makes you tick, what things hold you back, and your strengths and weaknesses.

Create the right environment

You’ll struggle to be consistent in your good habits if the environment in which you work and play is working against you. Your environment should work with you in your aims on a practical level. This includes the people you surround yourself with.

Make it easy

Make implementing your good habits easy to do or access.

Writing plans or to-do lists can help keep you on track and focused, whether it’s meal plans, or simply a list of chores. Put things in the diary or they’ll never get done.

Pack your gym bag, fill your fridge with healthy food, get enough sleep – as if you were planning it for someone else. Start by breaking habits into smaller tasks that are manageable and achievable. For example, if you want to develop a habit of reading daily, start with just a few pages a day instead of committing to a whole chapter at once. Additionally, prepare your environment to support your habit.

Keep a book by your bedside, set a specific time for reading, or create a cosy reading nook to make it inviting. Eliminate distractions that might derail your efforts, and make the desired behaviour as convenient as possible.

Habit stacking

Most humans are creatures of habit. It’s where we feel safe so we tend not to do anything different.

The idea of habit stacking is an effective method of effecting change without stressing us out too much. It works on the basis that you add a positive habit to something that you already do regularly. By pairing your new habit with your current one, you’ll find it easier to incorporate better habits into your life.

The idea is to start small. It could be adding a 5 minute stretch routine when you make a coffee in the morning or doing a 5 minute meditation on the train.

By starting small, you can focus on making that new behaviour a habit. Once you’ve mastered that, then you can look to add another one to the ‘stack’ and work on that one too.

Stacking your habits avoids the feeling of overwhelm on your routine, giving you a better chance of sticking to your new positive habits.

Reward yourself

Celebrating your achievements, no matter how small, can boost your motivation and make the habit-forming process more enjoyable and sustainable.

Find rewards that align with your goals and provide a sense of accomplishment. For example, after completing a week of daily reading, treat yourself to a relaxing bath, a favourite snack, or perhaps some leisure time with a hobby you enjoy.

When we anticipate rewards, dopamine levels in our brain rises, making us feel good.

Be consistent

Consistency is the cornerstone of building good habits and is crucial for long-term success. When you perform a specific behaviour repeatedly, it becomes ingrained in your routine and eventually second nature. Consistency reinforces neural pathways in the brain associated with the habit, making it easier to maintain over time. By consistently practicing a behaviour, you signal to your brain that this action is important and worth repeating.

When you encounter challenges on your journey to forming a habit, the momentum you’ve built through consistent practice can help you stay on track. It reinforces your resilience and determination to persevere through difficulties.

Ultimately then, consistency transforms actions into habits and habits into a lifestyle. By prioritising consistency in your efforts to build good habits, you set yourself up for lasting success.