Making good habits easy for you

We all tend to run away from the things that are good for us, we run away from healthy food and healthy components that make up our lifestyle. Oftentimes, we have habits that we tend to not recognize until they're pointed out. For example, you may put your hand in your pocket every time you are brushing your teeth or shake your legs anytime you are in a challenging position and it's not until someone brings light to it that we recognize them.

According to James Clear, Author of Atomic Habits "Understanding how to build new habits (and how your current ones work) is essential for making progress in your health, your happiness, and your life in general". Due to this, there is a strategy that goes into making these habits easier to stick with and it's not as complicated as one may think. 

Starting new habits doesn't mean we go full force. If the practice you want to build is to be more active you don't want to start by going to the gym 7x a week. You want to make it easy for yourself so that you cannot find any excuses. Motivation cannot be counted on therefore we have to make things easier on ourselves. For example, instead of starting to work out 7x a week, one may want to start with once a week and build off of that. As you start something small every day you can improve every day. With everyday improvement, the everyday desire and willpower to make these habits happen will strengthen. 

Now, many times it's easier to say we want to build certain habits and it's easy to think of how much better life would be after it gets accomplished; but that's not always the case. It is okay to give yourself grace and make mistakes as long as you learn from them. Researchers show that we should plan for failure. Planning for failure is a process where you want to reflect on the patterns that get in the way of certain habits and how you can plan to work around them (Clear, 2020, para. 13). With this being said the number one tip is to never miss twice, consistency is the key to success and not perfection. 

The first skill one will learn through this process is patience. As I mentioned be graceful towards yourself because one can make incredible process when they're patient and consistent. In the end, you also don't want to forget to reward yourself. For example, you can plan a study date with a friend so your reward is time to hang out with them afterward. 

As James Clear says "small changes in habits can lead to remarkable results" (Clear, 2020, para. 19). In these blogs we are all about making small changes early on in your college years that lead to a better lifestyle later on in life. 

References 

Clear, J. (2020, February 4). How to build a new habit: This is your strategy guide. James Clear. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://jamesclear.com/habit-guide

Parker-pope, T. (2020, February 18). How to build healthy habits. The New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/well/mind/how-to-build-healthy-habits.html