Have you been trying to make exercise and healthy eating a part of your lifestyle but for some reason you keep falling back into your old routines and eating patterns? You’re not alone. Many people struggle with building and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits too.
One major reason why this happens is because of the way they approach “healthy living” (…and I put it in quotations because there is so much information about dieting, exercising and healthy living available on the internet nowadays that many people struggle with determining what is factual and what is fake…).
The truth is healthy living is not a destination but rather a combination of beliefs and small daily intentional actions repeated over a lifetime. It’s not the end goal, its your way of life and until you can shift your mindset in that direction you will keep “starting” and “ending” your fitness journey; you will keep trying new diets and weight loss hacks; you will keep chasing a goal that you may never catch.
This is a really frustrating experience for many people but for you reading this blog post, your life is about to get a whole lot easier. Decades of research have proven that it is possible to shift mindset and replace bad habits with good ones and in this article I will show you six proven strategies you can use to build good habits right now and transform your life.
Six strategies to help you build healthy habits
- Identify the habit you want to create – You can’t create something you don’t know. So the first step to building good habits is to determine what the habit is. Start with being mindful. The simple definition of mindfulness is the ability of being present and fully engaged with whatever we’re doing at the moment. Being mindful gives you the opportunity to see and fully understand what you are doing and how you are responding to stimulus in your immediate environment. Practicing mindfulness on a daily will help you quickly identify defeating habits and help you identify what better and more helpful habits you could replace them with.
2. Know your routine – everyone is different. We each have our priorities, goals and lifestyle that we are trying to maintain. It’s very important to have a daily routine – this is especially helpful for maintaining balance and harmony in your life. Your routine includes everything you do from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep. Knowing your routine will give you the awareness you need to fit new habits into your lifestyle. Once you identify the habit you want to create, it becomes easy to fit it into your daily routine.
3. Make a plan – It’s always important to make a plan for how you will create the habit. First you need to set a small, realistic and measurable goal. For example, walking for thirty minutes everyday. Based on your routine you could break this into six five minutes walk everyday – taking a five minutes walk after every hour of sitting at your desk. Or doing it at one time in the morning or evening. You could also register at a gym or join a fitness challenge.
4. Be consistent – To make a new habit stick requires you repeating the action over and over and over until it becomes automatic. This process of repeated action is what we call consistency. It doesn’t matter what you are trying to accomplish, consistency is the key to success. The process of sticking to goals long after the initial momentum has died and pushing beyond challenges, set backs and limitations is the ultimate definition of consistency.
5. Be Patient – everything takes time. Most people don’t get to experience the joy of healthy living because they don’t stick with it long enough. Again, it comes from that mentality of fitness being a “destination”. Patience is also a mindset and habit that needs to be cultivated. Telling yourself daily that you are where you need to be at this particular point in time and you are working towards getting to where you want to go in the future will transform your life tremendously.
6. Find your balance – I can’t overemphasize the importance of finding “your” balance. Balance means something different to everyone. So, you need to determine what that means for your lifestyle, your priorities and your responsibilities. It’s not possible to be perfect every single day. Life is full of uncertainties and sometimes you will get knocked down and lose your balance. In these instances, you must cut yourself some slack and give yourself time to heal and regain your balance.
10 healthy habits of fit people
- Love yourself where you are and how you are
- Be intentional in your actions
- Eat whole food
- Drink enough water
- Eat fresh fruits and vegetables with every meal
- Exercise at least 30 minutes five days a week
- Sleep for at least 7 hours
- Manage stress
- Practice self care
- Read empowering books
Nothing will change in your life unless you intentionally work at changing it.
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Balance with Ade 