How to Build Habits That Stick
I’m going to let you in on a secret. For the most part, you know what you need to do to become healthier. Exercise more, sleep more, manage stress and eat healthier. It can start with waking up, going for a walk or putting more veggies on our plate or something even simpler like drinking more water. You’ve been at the start of a habit, but where are you at the end? Did you achieve what you wanted to achieve and what was the outcome you were trying to achieve? Like many others, it likely all got lost because…
Habit change is hard…yup.
You may have the best intentions but often fail to transform them into sustainable behaviours. How often do you start with something but a week later you're back to your old ways. Like you, I’ve struggled at times to make habits stick...I may be a Registered Dietitian with plenty of scientific knowledge but guess what…I’m not perfect either. Today, I want you to start thinking about something that was very impactful in the way I view habits, and what has helped me change or implement some habits of my own. First, I want you to know that whatever bad habits you have, have taken a long time to implement. So replacing them with good habits will require some time, a good plan and ultimately a change in belief systems. Let’s look a bit closer at how to set goals and build habits that truly stick.
Step 1: Decide the outcome that you desire
First, let’s look at what you ultimately want to achieve. What is the outcome. Is it to eat more veggies? To read more? To exercise 3 x per week? Whatever it is, this is your outcome goal. At the end of the day what do you want to achieve. It’s good and important to start here, but these goals need to be broken down if you hope to build sustainable habits. It's not enough to say that you want to lose weight because how are you going to do that? If you stop at outcome level goals, there’s a very low likelihood that you’ll achieve them.
Step 2: Break this outcome down into processes
The next step is to think of the processes that will take you to your outcome goal. These are the actionable tactics it takes to get there. The more detailed your breakdown, the easier it is to implement. For example, if your outcome goal is to eat more vegetables, the processes that it will take to get you to that goal might look like…
Step 1: I will make sure I have half my plate filled with veggies for lunch and dinner
Step 2: I will make sure one snack has vegetables in it
Step 3: I will put spinach in my smoothie
Depending on how far along you are in your journey and what your baseline is, doing all three steps at once might be too overwhelming. If this is the case, it might be helpful to start with making sure that your dinner is optimized with veggies, do that for 1-2 weeks and increase from there. Remember, you will never keep a habit if it's too hard to implement or if you are overwhelmed by it. So even though adding veggies to your plate 1x per day might seem like such a tiny step, just think about how long it has taken you to be where you are. Your unhealthy small habits have landed you here, so the same is true to reverse the process. When you’re looking to build sustainable habits, it's the long game that counts…short term results aren’t very valuable.
Step 3: Get real with yourself
This last piece of the puzzle has been a game changer for me. It's reflecting on the ideas that you have around making these changes. Think about what belief systems you have in place.
What does your self talk look like?
If you’re constantly thinking of yourself from an old belief system I challenge you to shift your perspective. For example, if you want to lose weight, ask yourself if you see yourself as a healthy person or unhealthy person? If you consider yourself an unhealthy person trying to make healthier changes, I challenge you to start thinking of yourself as a healthy person who eats more vegetables. If your goal is to get more exercise, instead of looking at yourself from the perspective of a non athlete, challenge yourself to say I’m an athletic person and an athletic person would walk every morning, so I’m going to do that.
Who is the person you want to become?
Re examining your beliefs around who you are, what you can achieve, and what has brought you to this exact place is usually overlooked. But if you’re trying to build long term sustainable habits then why wouldn't you examine the person that has made the decisions that got you to where you are, and consider the shifts that need to take place to take you where you want to go?
Most of you know what you want (outcome goals) and the steps you need to take (processes). If you’re unsure about the steps to take, working with a professional can help. They can keep you on track, motivated and work with you to tackle any obstacles that get in the way. But ultimately it all starts and ends with you. Change happens from within. What makes you tick? What gives you flow? What do you fear? Get real with yourself. What has been holding you back?
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