This month is all about resolutions (like every January of my life :P). I’ll be posting my four resolutions for the year, throughout January and February. In the next couple months. Subscribe and follow along, we’ll see how this goes…
Resolution #2: set new healthy habits
The best way to stick to a new good habit is to track or measure it so you can see the amazing person you’re becoming. Tracking your progress is a great way to maintain any kind of consistency or long term result.
Continue reading for a breakdown of how I use the tracker, but feel free to set your own rules.
Match your habits to your goals
What habits to you want to nail this year. Get up early? eat healthier? practice piano?
The habits you choose should align with your goals for the year. If you’re goal is to eat healthy, a corresponding habit would be; cook a healthy meal, take vitamins, don’t eat sugar, etc. If your goal is to sleep better a corresponding habit would be; get eight hours of sleep, go to bed by 11pm, meditate, no phone before bed, etc
Design your day
Place morning habits like, meditation, drink water, get up at 7am first on the list. Then move onto afternoon ones like; no coffee after 3pm, take vitamins, etc. Lastly place your evening habits at the end, habits like; read 10 pages, practice guitar for 20 minutes, bed by 11pm, and so on.
Know your why
I’ve been using habit trackers on and off for years, I find they really help in the initial kick start of a new good habit. I designed my own template for a very specific change, writing down your why. Once January motivation wears off and tiredness kicks in, we tend to forget all the reasons why we wanted to read more books, or learn Italian and these big goals we set can seem pointless.
Sometimes it may have been an overreach or an unrealistic goal, but more likely you just forgot why you wanted to accomplish them in the first place. Maybe learning Italian feels like a waste of time, but remember how badly you wanted to book a trip in the fall and feel comfortable speaking fluently in another language. Maybe getting up at 5am is pretty much an impossible feat three weeks into the year, but you set it because you needed the extra time to work on your business. Writing down your why will take you that much further in sticking to and forming those new habits!
Commit to change
It’s crazy how fast a habit can stick, especially when you track the progress your making, commit to tracking your habits for the next 21-days. It doesn’t matter what day you start.
Print your tracker and put it somewhere where you can see it throughout the day, in your planner, taped to your wall or pinned to your fridge. If you need to, set an alarm on your phone for daily reminders.
Be realistic
Mix up your current habits with your aspirational ones. If you’re really good at getting up on time at 7am every morning you can put that in the tracker. It’s really helpful to mix new habits in with some you’re already doing, try not to add more than five new habits all at once.
Keep going!
Don’t be hard on yourself, you will miss days, you’re only human. This quote always makes me feel better…you can change your bad habits & form new good ones!
“Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped” Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit.
If you skipped a couple days or missed the whole weekend, that’s ok just get right back on and continue tracking your good habits!
Download your free habit tracker now & get started!
