Life is made of habits, the actions we take every week, every day, every hour. In choosing and sticking with our habits, we create a routine we love, which turns into a life we love.
The question you might be asking yourself is: Do I love my routine? Do I fill my day with habits that fill my cup or deplete it?
When you wake up, what’s the first thing you do? You alarm goes off and you might roll right out of bed or press snooze and roll over. You might grab your phone and open Instagram. You might drink a big glass of water or hop in the shower. All of these, whether we’re cognizant of them or not, are habits.
Can I confess something to you? I am obsessed with healthy habit formation.
Over the last 5 years I have carefully crafted my habits in order to create a joyful, fulfilling life that I love. None of this happened over night, and this process wasn’t easy. For years I worked every day to find habits I liked, and I kept doing them again and again until they became non-negotiable elements of my routine.
If you want to create habits, a routine, and a life you love, I’ll give you a peek behind the curtain to understand how I build and maintain my healthy habits, and how you can too!
Here are the 4 steps I follow to build a new habit:
1. Choose something you love.
2. Set yourself up for success.
3. Hold yourself accountable.
4. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat!
Let’s dig in more here.
Step 1: Choose something you love.
In my quest to lead a healthy, happy life I have learned I don’t like every wellness trend or fad workout. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workouts come to mind. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy moving my body every day, but for some reason HIIT workouts turn me into an angry rage monster. So, no thanks!
I’m not going to like every health and wellness trend, and neither will you. That’s okay! There are so many wellness trends it’s impossible (and not medically advisable) to try all of them, let alone like all of them.
I make time for habits like my yoga practice because I actually like doing them. If I told myself that, in order to be “healthy”, I had to do HIIT workouts, I’d fail. I would just never make time for a habit I hated.
Step 2: Set yourself up for success.
Up until now you’ve functioned without this new habit just fine, so you might need a little extra help to make it stick.
If you want to journal for five minutes before work, turn your phone on airplane mode and leave it in another room. Set a 5 minute timer on your oven and write about whatever comes to mind.
If you want to go for a run in the morning around your neighborhood, set your clothes out the night before.
And make use of those calendar blocks! Block off your calendar for your new habit so you make time for it. I’m much more likely to put my shoes on and run if I make a calendar event or write it down in my bullet journal for that week.
^^ Here’s what my morning calendar blocks look like on an average week.
If your habit is ambitious, like running a 5k every week or meditating for 30 minutes every morning, start small. At first, choose a manageable action you like and want to do again. Start by meditating 3 minutes, not 30. Write down 3 gratitudes, not 25 to start. Run around your block, and build from there.
Step 3: Hold yourself accountable.
Shout out to Venture For America for teaching me about this one. I maintain consistent, regular habits because I ask my friends and family to hold me accountable.
Once you decide what new habit you want to build, tell someone about it. Then, when you next connect, and they ask you “did you do that thing”, you have to own up to whether you’ve done it. This is how I started reading books again (for fun!).
Step 4: Repeat repeat repeat.
Do your new habit again and again and again until you start seeing progress. Or, if after a while you’re still not seeing improvement or progress, reassess.
I tell my yoga students who are new to yoga that they should come to class every week for 3-6 months before they expect to see progress or improvement. That’s a long time! But if you expect to be an expert at yoga or do super hard postures after 1-2 weeks, you’d get discouraged. Be realistic about your goals and really give yourself a change to try them out for size.
Build habits you love. Build a life you love.
What I do.
Every single day I:
- Meditate on Headspace
- Do a French or Arabic language lesson on Duolingo
- Read
- Move my body
- Write down three gratitudes
Every week I:
- Run outside (3x)
- Do yoga (3-5x)
- Journal
Every month I:
- Review my spending + budget. (< I could be better about doing this.)
- Take a mental health day.
- Hop on a call with my accountabilibuddy.
What I want to do. (New habits!)
I’m always refining my habits, adding new ones, and taking old ones away. Here are a few, new habits I don’t yet make time for but want to:
- Write creatively every day
- Take weekly hikes in nature
- Maintain a consistent 10 pm bed time and 6 am wakeup
Tell me in the comments section, what habits do you make time for? What do you wish you made time for?
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