I've been reading some books lately, and one of my favorites is The Atomic Habits. In this book, he talks about the importance of making small changes in your everyday life that lead to big results.
It's a great resource for anyone who wants to improve their routine or just be more productive in general. My main takeaways from this book are:
Habits are powerful things—they can change our lives for better or worse!
Don't get stuck on one habit at a time—you're going to want to start doing something different soon enough anyway!
Image from jessicaluginbill.com
Now that begs the question, how are you exactly gonna improve your habits? Here are the steps on the book that I completely resonate with:
Start with tiny changes
Implementation intentions
The 2-minute rule
Habit stacking
We’ll be taking a deep dive how to apply these steps to achieve your fitness goals.
1. Start with tiny changes
One of the most important things you can do is start making tiny changes that, when repeated over time and time again, will become habits that lead to big results.
For example: If you want to lose weight, try eating only one slice of bread for breakfast instead of three slices. Or try drinking a glass of water every morning instead of coffee or tea (or both). These small changes are easy and don't require much effort on your part—and yet each one will help you reach your goal faster than if there were no change at all!
2. Implementation intentions
Implementation intentions are an easy way to help you remember your goals.
For example, if you want to lose weight, create an implementation intention that says something like “I will drink more water and exercise every day”.
When you feel tempted or bored by something else in life, remind yourself of this goal by writing it down on a piece of paper or putting it somewhere where it will be visible (like on top of your fridge). Your mind is likely to think twice about giving in when it sees that piece of paper!
3. The Two-Minute rule
The principle is that any behavior can be distilled into a habit that is doable within two minutes.
For example, if you want to get off the couch and go for a run, the first step is deciding when and where you'll do it. Then pick up your phone or put on some music that motivates you and clear your schedule so there's no one else in sight when it starts time.
You need to make sure that everything goes according to plan before starting—that includes setting up an alarm on your watch or phone so that when it rings, even if it's just after midnight at home or work (which will happen), all systems go!
4. Habit stacking
This is the technique where in order for you to make forming new habits easy, you need to combine it with habits you’ve already implemented.
For example: If I want to get fit but don't have time for cardio training sessions every day like my friend does (and she's not even trying!), then I'll combine my new habit of working out at home with her with our daily chitchat. This will make forming new habits easy because they're already established and take up less space in my brain!
Conclusion
If you're looking for a way to make your life more simple, that's easy and effective, then this is it. One last tip before we let you go, start now and get an accountability partner!
Book a 7 minute strategy call with our team here and we'll create a road map to build better habits!
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