Habits make up a huge part of our everyday lives, good and bad. Waking up early every day and meditating is a good habit. Waking up every day, checking your phone for an hour then skipping breakfast is generally a bad habit.
Creating good habits, however, isn’t as hard as it sounds. With these five steps, you can start creating those good habits today and set yourself up for success.
Start small
Start with a habit that doesn’t need a lot of motivation and make it simple. If you want to wake up and start your day off healthy, don’t set your goal to wake up and meditate for 30 minutes and cook a large breakfast. Instead say, “I will wake up and make toast and eggs before I check my phone.”
Make it so easy you can’t say no.
Gradually increase your habits
As you get into your new routine, start adding little by little. Don’t rush it, but in step 1 we said we wanted to add pushups to our morning routine. So now, you can say “I will wake up, meditate for 5 minutes, and make a healthy breakfast of toast and eggs before I check my phone.” Continuously add 5 minutes to your new routines so you’re working towards 30 minutes.
Break your habits into chunks
As you gradually add to your habit building, you need to ensure you’re keeping them reasonable and achievable. Maybe doing 20 minutes of meditation is too much at once in the morning, so instead you do 10 minutes when you wake up, make breakfast, and then do another 10 minutes.
When you slip, get back at it
You’re going to mess up and that’s okay! But a good rule to follow is “never miss twice.” Did you wake up and just not have it in you to meditate and you skipped it? It happens, but make sure you do it the next day. Too many missed days in a row, and the habit will be lost.
Be patient and stay consistent
Habits and results take time. If you’re mediating and eating better so that you feel better every day, don’t get discouraged when you don’t feel how you thought you would after a few weeks. Know the results are coming if you keep doing the work. Consistency is key when forming a new habit, and if you start small and keep your goals reasonable, the results will come.
