Motivation and willpower are often not enough to implement new habits. People get bored, they give up, or they're overwhelmed because they're trying to change everything at once. That's why we're sharing our best tips to stick to your new habits!
Some people say that the best way to develop habits is to get motivated and go for it with passion every day. We say, make it as easy as possible so that motivation is not even part of the equation.
As coaches, we know that motivation and willpower will often leave us hanging. Inspiration is magical but it’s a fleeting figure. But repetition – conscious, sustainable repetition – is the simplest way to develop a new habit or routine. Repeat the same thing, every day, until it’s the default choice.
Our resident addictive habit change experts, Kate Baily and Mandy Manners shared their 10 steps to achieve any goal so if you’re working on something BIG, read more about the secret to their success in this article.
1. Start small
When it comes to building habits, it’s the small, repetitive steps that count.
In James Clear’s ‘Atomic Habits he talks about three parts of the habit: acknowledge your trigger, take the action, reinforce with a reward. And repeat.
One of the key takeaways is that it doesn’t matter how long the action is! The key is to do the action again and again.
For example, it doesn’t matter how long the workout was, put on your gym clothes (trigger), go to the gym (action). Your body will start releasing endorphins as soon as you get on that treadmill (reward). You can go home after 5 minutes or 40 minutes. Tomorrow, do the same – put on your clothes, get on the treadmill. Repeat and repeat till you don’t even have to think about going to the gym, your brain will know what to do as soon as you put the gym shirt on.
The best part is this works, no matter what habit you are trying to stick to.
2. Start habit-stacking
A great idea to try when working on new habits is habit stacking.
The idea is that by clustering the habits we want to develop and sustain, we stand more chance of remembering them by associating related tasks with each other.
Habit stacking allows you to organise these habits in a way that makes sense for the way your day works already and stack an action or habit on an existing one.
For example, you might want to work on adding affirmations to your daily routine. You could add it to an existing journaling routine, meditation practice or even to your morning toothbrushing routine.
3. Start triggering your good habits
We mentioned earlier that all habits start with a trigger. You might notice this easier when it comes to our bad habits - the habits we develop to cope with everyday stress and worries – like retail therapy after a long day, that glass of wine at 6 o’clock, scrolling your phone when you’re feeling bored, etc.
This doesn’t mean that shopping or a glass of wine of bad for you by default, It becomes a problem when it starts becoming a default option, the thing you do most often to take your mind off of what’s happening (or not happening) in your life.
But we can use the concept of a trigger to trigger our good habits, the new habits we want to learn and make the good choice, the easiest choice.
Want to go running? Prepare your clothes and shoes in advance and put them in your line of sight. Putting on your running shoe will be the trigger.
Want to read a book? Put the book on the coffee table on the sofa. The moment you sit down on the sofa, that’s your trigger to reach for the book.
Want to drink more water? Put a recurring alarm on your phone – that’s your trigger.
Whatever you are looking to do more of, find a trigger that works for you.
4. Start every day
Not every day is a good day and that’s ok. New habits are especially hard to stick to in the first 30 days.
But every day is a new day. Every day is a new opportunity to implement the new habit. Don’t fall into the comfortable trappings of the all or nothing mentality and focus on sticking to your habit each day.
What do you do to stick to your habits?
If you'd like to learn more about how you can support others to build habits and achieve their goals, have you considered training as a life coach? Join us at one of our free Introduction to Life Coaching webinars.
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