How To Keep New Habits

Do you struggle to create new habits, stick to new routines and make those healthy lifestyle changes that you want to? 

It's all too common to go around in a cycle trying to start and ending up back where you are, to look for the next quick fix. 

In this blog I'm going to cover three reasons why this can happen to people, and briefly how to overcome them. 

The first habit or common reason I'm going to cover here of struggling to keep habits is that we believe every thought that comes into our mind. 

Our mind loves what's familiar, so often we have these continuous thoughts that keep picking up and you think "well I failed at that last time" and so subconsciously your mind thinks you're going to fail at it again. It gives you all these reasons why you will fail. 

So it's being able to tap in and question those thoughts and just simply ask is it a helpful thought? Because every thought that comes into our head isn't necessarily true. It simply is a thought, and being able to decipher those that are helpful to those that aren't, is really valuable in being able to stick to your habits and your lifestyle changes. 

The second one is that there's always an emotion that triggers us to discard the habit or to eat that piece of cake when you're trying to look at your nutrition, or skip that gym session, or stay up late even when you told yourself you're going to go to bed earlier, so you can get a good amount of sleep.

There's always an emotion that says that you deserve this or I don't really feel like doing that now. Being able to tune into that and not just go with the immediate emotion, which is linked to point one, because the thought creates the emotion in our mind uses both of those to take us off track back to what is familiar. 

Being able to question and observe that emotion and then link that to thinking longer-term, how will I feel after I've gone to the gym? How will I feel in the morning after I've slept well? 

And being able to tap into that longer-term emotion, can help take away that thought and that emotion now which is trying to hinder and stop you from staying on track. 

Lastly it's about having support. 

We are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with, so if the people around you aren't helping you towards that lifestyle change, that habit, that goal, whatever it might be then you need some people around you that will be able to support you. Share the changes you are trying to make with someone you trust, and whether they're trying to also make changes or whether that's someone that's going to support you for your own good rather than bringing in their own stuff and their own reasoning.
 

So three reasons very simply are;
Questioning your thoughts, 
Observing your emotions and thinking longer term and
Having people around you that will support you.

Anna
Pura Vida Living
Helping busy people who feel overwhelmed or the stresses of everyday life, to feel calmer in their mind and their body, not only to be able to increase their likelihood of achieving the outcomes that they want with regards to health well-being and bigger goals, but to feel and be more productive along the way. 

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