A compilation of things I got from the Internet......
DLC Talk - 24 January 2010
Warning! This talk is HABIT forming!!!!
What is a habit?
- Things that you do without thinking
- Activities you want to do for an extended period of time (frequently)
Why would we want something to be a habit?
- Because habit is less energy consuming
- You don’t need to motivate yourself every time you want to do something e.g. waking up early
The core strategies for building new habits
- You have to decide on what you want to be a habit – should be specific e.g. habit of drinking water instead habit of drinking 6 glasses of water a day.
- You have to set up a triggers to help you remember the action at the time you want to do it – ask a friend to call you, set an alarm, stick a note.
- Once you have remembered you have to be able to motivate yourself to act.
With a small amount of initial discipline, you can create a new habit that requires little effort to maintain
Some TIPS for creating new habits and making them stick:
- Commit to 30 days – a month is a good block of time to commit to a change since it easily gets in your calendar.
- Make it daily – consistency is critical.
- Start simple – don’t try to completely change your life in one day.
- Remind yourself – place reminders to execute your habit each day.
- Get a buddy – find someone who will go along with you or someone you wouldn’t want to disappoint.
- Form a trigger – ritual you use, much like a visual reminder.
- Replace lost needs – if you are giving up something in your habit, make sure you are adequately replacing any needs you’ve lost e.g. tv is your relaxation, you could replace it with meditation or reading a relaxing book.
- Be patient – try your best but expect a few bumps along the way.
- Use “BUT” positively – say I’m not good at this “BUT” if I work at it i might get better later.
- Remove temptation – restructure your environment so it won’t tempt you even in the first 30 days only e.g. cancel your cable subscription
- Associate with role models – spend more time with the people who model the habits you want to mirror. You become what you spend time around.
- Run it as an experiment – withhold judgment until after a month has past and use it as an experiment in behavior. Experiments can’t fail, they just have different results so it will give you different perspective on changing your habit.
- Swish – visualize yourself performing the habit....end it with an image of yourself in a highly positive state.
- Write it down – for clearer ideas and more focus on end results, state your goals in positive terms “I want to be lean and physically fit” instead of “I’ve got to get this flabby body out there”.
- Know the benefits – familiarize yourself with the benefits of making a change.
- Know the pain – exposing yourself to the realistic downside of not making the change will give you added motivation.
- Do it for yourself – tool your habits towards your goals and the things that motivate you.
- Talk to yourself – tell yourself that you are making progress, you are moving closer to your goal. Talk to yourself about how you are going to avoid triggers that can set you off track and make healthy substitute.
- Review your list for changing.
- Create a mental picture of yourself having already succeeded with your habit change.
- Make positive self statements e.g. I am filled with so much health and vitality now that I exercise 4 times a week.
- Reward yourself – make up a list of self rewards.
- Remember to take 1 day at a time. If you do backslide, get your list or reasons for doing the habit (that’s number 1) begin again.
- Install a new habit. One that is useful or valuable tool for achieving some very important life goals, like : maintaining your health, your flexibility, your finances.
- Keep it simple for the first go.
- Learn the process of creating a habit.
- Once you know, then you can take on bigger things.
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