Changing Habits
Habits.
They can be good.
They can be not so good.
At some point we need to try to change the bad habits into good habits.
This can be really hard.
Habits form after doing a behaviour repetitively for a long time. This means trying to change that behaviour can require commitment and some strategies.
But there is good news, it can be done!
Join us on Monday 30th May at 8pm (AEST) to talk about changing habits!
What can you do to start a new (hopefully good) habit?
- Make a reward system for yourself
- Document your progress so that you can go back and look at how far you've come
-Do it along side a friend!
What gets in the way of changing habits?
For me it is self doubt, laziness, fear, and not being able to sit with discomfort... Also can be stress and spoons
What gets in the way of changing habits?
Defintely agree with you @ClCl i struggle with the same things. I guess I also sometimes can get in a cranky mood and just be like #@&@ it and stop doing the good thing I was doing or start doing the not so good thing. Thankfully I have learned that this is generally not a good idea over some time.
The other big thing that gets in the way of changing habits is stress. It's really hard to focus on a new thing or stop an old thing that your body is used to if there's a lot of pressure.
Just do it 😛
Get it into a routine, make it a regular thing.
Basically figuring out what results in me doing a certain thing and what can be changed about that.
What can you do to start a new (hopefully good) habit?
This is something i struggle with!
Things that work for me:
Gamification-if there's an app for it and i get some kind of reward (even if it's completely pointless) I'll most likely become obssessed with it and develop a habit. For example I have Strava for when i ride my bike too and from work. I ride every day really fast, because i want to beat everyone else who rides on the same route as me :P.
Another example is using a workout app called Seven which gives you rewards for completing a month of workouts in a row you unlock new workouts and stuff, and so of course i am now obsessed with it :P.
The other thing that works for me is making it a part of my routine and easier than the alternative. For example i have some pretty healthy and easy recipes that i can make for lunch. I buy up a bunch of ingredients every monday and leave them in the ReachOut fridge. That way it's easier to just whip up something tasty, cheap and healthy instead of going out to eat too much at the local sushi train 😛
@ClCl that's such a good point, mindset is probably the biggest thing to get you going on the habit. One of my absolute best friends had a really good example of this, they're pretty bad at studying, they are getting into the habit of studying by reminding themselves of all the cool stuff they will be able to do for themselves and the people they care about when they finish !
The other thing i read was that it DOES get easier over time. It takes between 21 days and 250 days of repeating something for a habit to become just something you do without really thinking about it (with 250 being for harder habits). So while it does take ages, it helps me to remember that if I keep following through and doing it every day, I am working towards that goal of making it unconsciously easy!
It certainly can be hard to change habits, especially the ones which we have been doing for a long time. But why is that?
What gets in the way of changing habits?
What can you do to start a new (hopefully good) habit?
Be clear about the reasons you want to implement the habit - to help motivate yourself.
Try to do the activity under similar contexts - in the same place, at the same time of day, when you are feeling a certain way
Do it as consistently as possible
So, we have considered some ways to stop habits, how about creating them?
What can you do to start a new (hopefully good) habit?
