By
Akindman,
As
we are now into the Holiday Season with our focus on: celebrating; gift buying;
doing holiday letters, cards and phone calls; attending/hosting parties;
decorating our Christmas trees and homes; and the endless gatherings where we
can eat until our little hearts are content; are all part of the joy of the
season – I found a very interesting article on Tuesday to share with our
readers.
Earlier
this year, we post several articles on 13 Healthy Habits (February and March)
and throughout this year other related articles. As I have recently began my quest for getting
the ole body back into shape, my weight under control and more importantly
having a healthier body – the timing of this article is excellent. In addition, it just might help your during
this holiday season.
How to Achieve Your Goals with Healthy Habits
Written by Leo Babauta
We’ve all faced the disappointment and guilt that comes
from setting a goal and giving up on it after a couple of weeks. Sustaining
motivation for a long-term goal is hard to achieve, and yet the best goals can
usually only be accomplished in a few months or even years.
Here’s the solution: Focus instead on creating a new habit
that will lead to achieving your goal.
Want to run a marathon? First create the habit of running
every day. Want to get out of debt and start saving? Create the habit of brown
bagging it to work, or watching DVDs instead of going to the movies, or
whatever change will lead to saving money for you.
By focusing not on what you have to achieve over the course
of the next year, but instead on what you are doing each day, you are focusing
on something achievable. That little daily change will add up to a huge change,
over time … and you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve come in no time. Little
grains of sand can add up to a mountain over time.
I used this philosophy of habit changes to run a marathon,
to change my diet and lose weight, to write a novel, to quit smoking, to become
organized and productive, to double my income, reduce my debt and start saving,
and to begin training for an Olympic triathlon this year. It works, if you
focus on changing habits.
Now, changing your habits isn’t easy — I won’t lie to you —
but it’s achievable, especially if you start small. Don’t try to change the
world with your first habit change … take baby steps at first. I started by
just trying to run a mile — and by the end of the year, I could run more than
20 miles.
How do you change your habits? Focus on one habit at a
time, and follow these steps:
Positive changes. If you’re trying to change a negative
habit (quit smoking), replace it with a positive habit (running for stress
relief, for example).
Take on a 30-day
challenge. Tell yourself that
you’re going to do this habit every day, at the same time every day, for 30
straight days without fail. Once you’re past that 30-day mark, the habit will
become much easier. If you fail, do not beat yourself up. Start again on a new
30-day challenge. Practice until you succeed.
Commit yourself
completely. Don’t just tell
yourself that you might or should do this. Tell the world that DEFINITELY will
do this. Put yourself into this 100 percent. Tell everyone you know. Email
them. Put it on your blog. Post it up at your home and work place. This
positive public pressure will help motivate you.
Set up rewards. It’s best to reward yourself often the first week, and
then reward yourself every week for that first month. Make sure these are good
rewards, that will help motivate you to stay on track.
Plan to beat your
urges. It’s best to start out
by monitoring your urges, so you become more aware of them. Track them for a
couple days, putting a tally mark in a small notebook every time you get an
urge. Write out a plan, before you get the urges, with strategies to beat them.
We all have urges to quit — how will you overcome it? What helps me most are
deep breathing and drinking water. You can get through an urge — it will pass.
Track and report your
progress. Keep a log or
journal or chart so that you can see your progress over time. I used a running
log for my marathon training, and a quit meter when I quit smoking. It’s very
motivating to see how far you’ve come. Also, if you can join an online group
and report your progress each day, or email family and friends on your
progress, that will help motivate you.
Most important of all: Always stay
positive. I learned the habit of monitoring my thoughts, and if I saw any
negative thoughts (“I want to stop!”) I would squash it like a little bug, and
replace it with a positive thought (“I can do this!”). It works amazingly. This
is the best tip ever. If you think negative thoughts, you will definitely fail.
But if you always think positive, you will definitely succeed.
Once
the holidays are over, most of us will be once again making our New Year’s
Resolutions for the upcoming year – so why not start now planning ahead for
those goals and begin looking at healthy habits to help you achieve your goals?
I
started mine a couple weeks: researching apps for my smartphone to assist me in
tracking items that my doctor, dietitian/nutritionists, podiatrists, wife, friends
and I have agreed items to track and goals/measures for each.
