Creating a Healthy Habit in 15 days!

Hi Fit Friends,

I'm beginning to realize just how much of our lives are habit or routine. I get up, make breakfast, get ready for work, work, come home, make dinner, answer your emails, watch tv, go to bed, repeat. Of course, there are moments of variety, like finding 5 abused kitties and their mama last week. (BTW, I still have a few that need a loving home!) But, overall, we are creatures of habit. We find it comforting to know what is coming next.

For example, I'm wanting to create a new habit of writing. I tell myself that I am going to write everyday, however I am allowing work to get in the way. Notice how I say "I am allowing work to get in the way". It's time we take responsibility for our choices. How many times do we say, "I'm going to workout everyday this week", only to hit the snooze button and roll over in bed. We make choices, life doesn't just happen to us. We have to realize that when we hit the snooze we just made a choice to sleep rather than workout. When we choose to drive thru rather than cook, we made a choice of convenience. I do the same thing, I choose to answer emails rather than write. Why do we put these things off? Because it's easier, we know what's coming next. If I hit the snooze I know I'll get to sleep in, but if I go for a run, well, I'll have to move my body, sweat, feel my heart pound, etc. If that's not a habit, I might not be used to it and it might be uncomfortable.

It's time to get uncomfortable. I would like our focus this week to be on creating a new habit, a healthy habit. Do you have something you want to achieve? Are you trying to quit smoking? Stop trying- do or do not! Are you wanting to walk more? Are you wanting to make healthier meals for your family? Are you wanting to lose 5 pounds? 50? Whatever your goal, look at the following steps and see if you can create a new, healthy habit.



Day 1: Name your habit
Define it in the shortest, yet most understandable sentence you can write. Take your time. Write until you finally come up with an atomic sentence. You'll want a sentence that you can repeat over and over in your mind. Something that will keep you on track.

Day 2: Describe your habit
Now it’s time to get detailed. Write everything you need to perform in order to create that habit. i.e., I will write everyday for 20 minutes after dinner. Be specific and set a trigger. For instance, I write "after dinner" dinner is my trigger.

Day 3-5: Implement your habit
Journal your experiences with your habit implementation. You should be extremely accurate but without any comment whatsoever. Don't write any comments, just what you did. If you did nothing, write that, but don’t write the reasons.

Day 6: First Milestone
Now it’s time to start analyzing. This is the day when you’re commenting on your progress. If you haven’t made any progress it’s time to write the reasons. What stopped you? Which of you defined tasks in Day 2 were performed and which avoided? Be as specific as you can.

Day 7-9: Phase 2
You already have a milestone and three days of practice. You can now go on with habit implementation, applying all you’ve learned in the first milestone. Remember, just write down the action performed, not your comments.

Day 10: Second Milestone
Now you have the experience of the first milestone and even 3 more days in which you implemented, it’s time to write down your comments again. By the second milestone you already shaped most of your habit. Just write down your progress and any comments you may want to get out of your head.

Day 11 – 14: Phase 3
By now this should be on auto-pilot. Unless you have established yourself a really big goal, you should be able to use the 3rd phase only for lock-in purposes. You may focus now on the doing and enjoy your new habit.

Day 15: Final Evaluation Milestone
Journal any thoughts or comments that will help you in your final evaluation. If you feel you can enhance the process, or even if you haven’t created your habit yet, you can restart the whole process. It’s only two weeks and you’ve done it once already.
ENJOY THE HABIT YOU HAVE CREATED!

Eat Intentionally and create a healthy habit,

Cindy