We all want to have healthy habits that last longer than a week so that when we lose weight & tone up, we can keep those dream goals for life.
That’s the ultimate goal.
Nobody wants to end up in a vicious cycle of losing weight and then regaining it.
So how do we make healthy habits last?
Below you’ll find 5 top tips on how to make the chance of success with your habits higher so that you can keep those amazing results.
1) Make Your New Habits Easy To Achieve
Sounds simple right?
And it is.
But it’s quickly overlooked because it is SO simple.
We often want to look for the harder answer because we might believe that will get us the better result.
So how do we go about keeping our habits easy to achieve?
By removing the barriers that are in the way.
Let’s practically look at it. You want to improve how much water you drink.
And think… “let’s aim for 2 litres a day.”
Fab. Now what?
Sometimes that’s as far as some peoples work on their habits go. Just the OUTCOME.
Instead, look at the PROCESS and what barriers are in the way to achieving it.
Find yourself caught in between looking after the kids & working from home, so regular trips to the kitchen for some water are hard?
Keep a nice big bottle with you at your desk.
And when you give your kids a glass of water, take one for yourself too.
Look at what barriers are in the way for you to achieve a habit and put things in place around it.
2) Make your habits harder to achieve
“What?! You just told us to make them easier”…
Yes, and now think of the habits you want to develop that involve any sort of reduction.
Less junk food, less processed food, less mindless snacking, less alcohol.
Whatever it is that you choose you want to reduce, make the habit of doing that harder.
Let’s take the classic example that a lot of our new clients want to work on - reduce snacking on less healthy foods between meals.
Firstly, have you got an abundance of it in the house? If so, you’re making it easy to stick with this less healthy habit. So think of reducing the amount at home to make the habit harder.
So you now keep less of it at home, great.
Up next, what can you do to make what you have left less accessible?
You don’t need to padlock it up into a safe - that’s just ridiculous!
But if it’s out in the open for you to see every time you walk into the kitchen, that’s far to easy. Make the habit harder by storing it out of eye sight such as a cupboard or an drawer that’s not easily visible.
What ever habit you are trying to do less of, think of what extra barriers you can put in place from you easily doing said habit.
3) Don’t do everything at once
I’m going to increase my water, reduce my snacking between meals, walk 10k a day, exercise 5 times a week and learn to juggle 3 balls at the same time whilst skipping.
You’re setting yourself up to fail right away.
But that’s not your own fault. You see other people managing all of that. (Maybe apart from the skipping & juggling).
Yet what you don’t see is it’s taken them months, if not years, to get to that stage.
So focus on yourself instead and think of what you can do.
For the next week or two that might just mean looking at your water intake. Putting the other tips I’ve shared in this blog into action to really nail that habit consistently.
Before adding the next layer of habits on top.
Sounds slow? And it is a little slower than doing all of them at once.
But after a few months, you’ll be in a far better place with solid foundations in the habits you want to achieve.
4) Link habits together
By it’s very nature, we’ve already got a set of habits in place. Whether they work for or against the goals you want to work towards, that’s another question.
If you look at your current habits, you can begin to notice patterns and either add or remove other habits into the mix.
Let’s take a look at some simple and easy examples which James Clear does a fantastic job of using:
After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will meditate for one minute.
After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.
After I put on my running shoes, I will text a friend or family member where I am running and how long it will take.
Notice a trend here?
Here’s the formula for the magic:
After/Before [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].
Why does it work so good?
Because you are building on pre-existing habits that have probably been established for you for years that at the moment require ZERO thinking about.
Let’s say you want to get better at eating fruit. Something a lot of our clients work on with us initially.
What can you link it to that you already currently do?
Feed the kids fruit
Eat breakfast
Have an afternoon walk
Whenever you do those each day, add your new habit on top.
Here are some more examples of what you could implement to help you develop AND maintain better healthy habits:
When I make my coffee in the morning, I’ll do a few stretches whilst the kettle boils
When I go toilet, I’ll grab a glass of water or refill my water bottle
When I eat lunch, I’ll eat a piece of fruit afterwards
Ultimately, think of what you already do currently that requires ZERO thinking (e.g. shower) and think of what you want to take action on (e.g. spending 2 minutes a day to meditate).
5) Be realistic
Sounds obvious right?!
But I wouldn’t state it if I didn’t see the opposite happen, time after time.
Even when people decide they want to work on ONE habit, find ways to make it easier and link it to other habits.
If it’s going from 0-100mph, it’s going to be difficult to hit it consistently.
And that’s the whole point in developing your habits. To get to a place where you can consistently do them without the need to put much effort of thinking about them.
So when I see people wanting to go from doing no exercise for years, to wanting to train 5 times a week, I do get a little nervous for them. Even if they appear super motivated and excited about it.
I applaud the desire to change. But would advise them, both from a realistic goal & health aspect to reconsider it.
If they keep it up for 3 weeks and then feel they’ve burnt themselves out so stop - that’s no good for their progress long term.
But if they were to aim for 2 sessions a week to start out with and build it up from there, I bet they are more likely to stick with it over the months and hopefully years.
Same goes with nutrition.
Going from zero fruit/veg to aiming for 10 portions a day is rarely the answer.
It’s going to be super hard and you’ll probably feel like a failure by the end of the week if you’ve only managed to eat 4 portions each day.
But if the goal was for 3-4 portions a day, you’d feel amazing with that result because you achieved it.
Achieving the exact same result but having a different goal in mind can change entirely how you feel about your progress.
What’s next?
Want to improve your habits to make living a healthier life & fitter life easier? Discuss this blog with other like-minded people in our free Facebook group here,
OR…
Grab our free easy to follow recipe book where you can become your own fat loss chef at home here.
And if you thought this was super useful to you, we’d love for you to help us share what could be a life changing message with someone else!