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As you celebrate New Year’s, do you make resolutions that you stick with for the first 2-weeks, then throw by the wayside as life gets busier? In 2021, maybe you can take the time to make new, successful habits, not failing resolutions.
But talk is cheap. We all need ACTION.
Everyone wants to make a good habit (as opposed to starting a bad habit on purpose), and many of us make resolutions to do the right things for the New Year. But how do you get those things to become a permanent activity in your daily life? And how can you ensure that the changes you make won’t get cast aside as soon as life gets busy?
Here are a few tips and tricks to help you start and maintain a good habit. I speak with people all day and encourage them to make the changes that will help take away pain, improve range of motion, or strengthen them so that they can get back to doing what they love…like swimming, running, or picking up a grandchild.
But making those changes can seem insurmountable. I know this, because I struggle with the same things as you. I’m writing this blog topic as much for myself to research and learn how to make things easier, not just act like I know it all and can teach you how to be a better you.
So here are five tips to help you (and me) make a good habit that remains permanent in your daily life.
1. Set up a Cue
The cue is the thing that triggers the intended changed behavior or habit that you want to become permanent. I like the “when-then” method of doing this.
This means that “when” you do something that is normal in your day, “then” you attach your new good habit to it.
Here are a few examples:
“When you brush your teeth, then you do your balance exercises.”
“When you get out of bed, then you will go for a walk.”
“When you’re waiting for the coffee to brew, then you do your push-ups.”
That would mean that you are doing the activity that you want to ingrain on a daily or twice a day schedule. Anchoring the activity to some thing that you already do is powerful. You already have one habit, why not tack the next one to that?
So now you have time to do the new activity, and the trigger to get you started, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the activity and the new time commitment. After all, if you are now going for a walk right when you get out of bed, that pushes your other morning activities to later in the day.
So start off small.
Maybe you can walk for 5-minutes at first. Add another minute each day or two. Pretty soon you will be up to 20-30 minutes of walking and you will have made the gradual adjustments to the rest of the schedule to accommodate the longer walks.
Do counter-top edge push ups for a short set, like 10 repetitions, while the coffee brews. As ten get easier to do, work toward 2 sets of ten, or even go for 20 in a row without a break. You’ll be waiting the same amount of time for the coffee to brew, but you can get something productive done in the meantime. Gradually increasing exercise also allows your body to have the time it needs to adapt and strengthen your new habit.
Too many people try to get started in a big way. You make a grand start to the new routine, like getting to the gym and working out for 50-minutes, only to be so sore the next day that you cannot walk up the steps without pain. That is a big DE-motivator for keeping that activity going and building it into the good habit you want.
So start off small and build gradually toward the bigger healthier habit you want.
Consistency matters.
This is the thing I need to work on personally. If I were consistently doing my habit building, then you would be receiving a new bit of writing from me every month. So now you can hold me honest to help me build my good habit this year.
Practice makes perfect, right?
Nope.
Vince Lombardi corrected this quote by specifying, “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”
I would go one step further with this and say, “Practice makes permanent.”
What do you want to make permanent? That is the question you need to answer to make that “perfect” habit happen more than just occasionally.
But don’t just practice things haphazardly. Do your practice with intention, and as Vince Lombardi said, practice perfectly. There is no sense in practicing the wrong thing. This ends up developing a habit of doing something poorly.
So practice frequently, but practice well!
When you do the action that you intend to build into a habit, reward yourself with something that you genuinely enjoy. One thing that the research backs is to have a piece of chocolate after your exercise. This builds a pattern in your brain to be rewarded for doing the good behavior.
We are not so far removed from Pavlov’s dog. Our responses can be conditioned, just as the sound of a bell could produce salivation in the dog that was trained that a treat would be given when the bell rang. This is considered in psychology as a “conditioned response,” and becomes a part of your overall physical conditioning as the “reward” response gets ingrained and associated with the stimulus.
That means that eventually your walk or push-ups will be as rewarding to you as a piece of chocolate…but remember the key word there…EVENTUALLY. If the puppy gets a treat for the right behavior, so should you!
This might take 10-days, it might take 30-days, but it will happen. Just ask this dog why he is sitting up so well…
One of the toughest things about making a new habit is, well, changing.
Change can be difficult. We all have our habits and routines that we do each day. There are rituals that we go through.
Take, for instance, how you make your cup of coffee. Do you set up the machine at night, put in the filter full of your favorite grind, and set a timer?
Or do you get out the French-press and set it beside the stove with your full water pot ready to be boiled in the morning? And if you use the French-press, there is a ritual to that, in and of itself, to get that perfect cup of coffee with the crème on top.
The point is, you made those habits. Why can’t you make more?
You can!
Just try to make them in the easiest way possible. BJ Fogg calls this the “minimum viable effort.”
For example, if you need to make a change to your posture, set yourself in the best posture and prop yourself there. This might mean to adjust the chair back, or to put a pillow behind the lower back as you sit at your desk. Make it so that holding your best posture is as little work as possible.
If you have to think about your posture, you’re doomed. As soon as you get working and concentrating on other things, your good posture will be gone as well…unless you are propped there so that you can’t help but remain in the best position.
It is also a good idea to set a timer for every 30-minutes to remind you to “check-in” on your posture and make corrections if needed. This goes back to Points #2 (Start Small) and Point #3 (Be Consistent).
If you sit perfectly, you are practicing to sit perfectly, which makes the perfect posture become automatic.
Now, that perfect posture is a habit!
Summary
In order to make a healthy habit, you can use these five tips to get you started. Once you have one healthy habit ingrained, you can move to your next. But remember, set up a cue/trigger, keep them small and manageable, be consistent, reward yourself for your good behavior, and make it easy.
Here’s to a happy, safe, and healthy new year for each of you!
Want more ideas to help build a good habit? Check out Barking up the Wrong Tree
NOTE: The information in this blog is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information based on the research and experience of the physical therapists at Lifestrength (www.Lifestrengthpt.com). We encourage you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.
2 Responses
Happy New Year!
Thanks for the encouraging information! It is so helpful as well as insightful! See you soon!
Scott,
Thanks once again for such a good blog. I certainly will choose 1 (or maybe 2) things to change using your 5 tips. Keep them coming!
Sandy