KEY RULES OF DEVELOPING GOOD HABITS
Developing good habits can be hard, no matter how motivated we are in the beginning, we tend to lose the consistency in the middle of it. Habits can be tricky, especially when we want to develop those which we plan on keeping for a life time.
For example, drinking 8 glasses of water every day. We start off very motivated but end up losing track. To solve these problems, we are here to discuss some simple strategies which will make it easier to develop good habits for a long time.
MAKE IT SO EASY THAT YOU CANNOT SKIP IT
The goal is to stay consistent. There should be no excuses not to do it any given day. The whole point of a habit is to stay consistent and follow it every day. People usually lose interest because it gets too much for them too sudden. The key is to take it easy. Set targets which are very easy to fulfil. Do you want to start drinking a sufficient amount of water? Start with drinking one glass. Then eventually increase the amount of it. This way, you will not be able to say no to it, and actually get it done day by day. This trick will help you in staying consistent. We get this urge to compare ourselves to others, for example if we want to start exercising, we think oh look at him/her, they exercise 2 hours every day. But important think to understand is one cannot just start from nothing to two hours of exercise every day. You need to take it slow and steady and eventually go up to that level.
UNDERSTAND WHY YOU AREN’T ABLE TO DO IT
We often think that “Oh, I’m just not the type of person who works out or oh I am just like that”. Sometimes we think we cannot do a certain thing only because there is something about it which either bothers us or makes us uncomfortable. To understand why you are not able to get consistent with a habit, you have to break it down and see what is it that is bothering you about it. Many times, people like working out but they do not like getting ready or working out in front of other people. So, they key is to understand and analyze.
PLAN PROPERLY
Most of the time people fail to develop a good habit is because they do not properly plan it. The key is to plan effectively. The first step is to schedule it. Do not set deadlines as they are not effective. Fix a time for your work out. Secondly, always follow the rule to never miss out twice. So if you had junk one day, make a promise to yourself to eat a healthy meal the next day. By this you will stay more consistent and enjoy developing good habits.
It is okay to slip up on your habits, you are only human! They key is to never do it twice in a row.