5 Steps to Create a Habit
So you want to eat healthier, exercise more, or start another habit? Have you tried starting this habit before, but only stick with it for a few days or weeks? What is the trick to creating a habit?
If you are like most of us, you may be highly motivated to make a change in the beginning, but then the motivation wears off and you fall back into our old routine. Why do our attempts to create healthy changes fail and how do we get ourselves to make a change become habit? Luckily, there are some steps we can take to help these actions become second nature.
Step 1: Start Small
First and foremost, we need to start with small changes. I’m talking baby steps. New tasks can seem daunting if we try to go from 0 to 100 in a day or two. Think about it this way, if you have not exercised in a long time, would you be more likely to A) Exercise for 10 minutes 3 to 4 days a week or B) Exercise for 45 minutes 5-6 times per week? Probably option A right? This smaller goal feels more doable since it takes up less time and is not as big of a change. Because it does not take as much effort to complete, we are more likely to complete the task day after day, making it a habit. As the tasks become part of our routine, we may even look forward to it!
This strategy applies to eating better too. Completely overhauling our diet can result in us eating better for a week or two and then being burned out from all of the changes and feeling deprived of our favorite foods. If we start with one small change, like eating an extra serving of fruit or vegetables, we can build on this change once the habit has formed.
Step 2: Create a SMART Goal
What is a SMART goal? One that uses intelligent, multisyllabic words?? Nope, a SMART goal is one that is Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-oriented. A quick guide to writing SMART goals is below:
- Specific- Be very specific about your goals. Ask yourself the 5 “W’s”. Who, What, Where, When, Why.
- Measurable- You should be able to measure your action in some way. Instead of just “eat more fruit,” a measurable goal would be to “eat 3 servings of fruit.” Or instead of “exercise more,” choose “exercise for 20 minutes.”
- Achievable- Your goal should be one that you can accomplish. Eating 5 servings of fruit each day would not be an achievable goal if you currently don’t eat fruit daily. Remember, start small so you will be successful.
- Relevant- Make sure the task is something that is truly important to you. This way you stay motivated throughout the process.
- Time-oriented- How many times have we said, “I’ll do that later or tomorrow?” Putting a timeline with our goal will hold us responsible and keep us on track.
Let’s put what we just learned into practice. Say we want to eat better and our original goal is “to eat healthier.” This goal does not give us any structure like a SMART goal does, so let’s transform it.
- S– To be specific with “eating healthier,” let’s choose to eat more vegetables.
- M– How much? 3 cups
- A– Is 3 cups of vegetables per day achievable? Maybe, but if not consider changing the “M”.
- R– Is your goal relevant? Yes, eating more vegetables contributes to eating healthier.
- T– How often will you eat 3 cups of vegetables? Let’s choose each day for 4 weeks.
Now instead of having a goal of “eating better,” our goal is to “eat 3 cups of vegetables each day for 4 weeks.” This goal is much more likely to keep us on track because we can see if we completed the task for the day. Once we accomplished this for 4 weeks, we can re-evaluate the goal and see if we want to increase the goal, add on another SMART goal, or just continue on with the current goal if it has not become part of our routine yet.
Step 3: Mark it off!
Use a calendar, planner or your phone to mark off each day you achieve your SMART goal! This visualization helps keep our motivation up since we can see how well we have been doing. This strategy really helped me get back into a healthy exercise habit. Creating a calendar meeting in your phone or planner can also help you stay committed. Treat this meeting like you would a work meeting. You can’t miss it!
Step 4: REWARD
We can all use a little reward when we are doing a good job! This gives us something to look forward to and boosts our motivation when we are having one of those off days. Try to choose rewards that do not involve food. This will help us keep a healthy relationship with food since we won’t label food as “good” or “bad.” Instead, treat yourself to a movie, a massage, a manicure, a new workout outfit, a new book, new cooking equipment or your favorite activity!
Step 5: Give yourself Grace
Making changes can be hard and we should not expect to be perfect. We may slip up from time to time and skip a day of our new behavior. However, try your best to not take more than 2 days off from the activity. If we go longer than 2 days, we can easily fall back into our old habits and have to re-start. It is easier to keep the ball rolling than to stop and start again. If you do skip a day or 2, remember to give yourself grace. Be kind to yourself and jump back on track tomorrow.
Comment below on what habit are you going to commit to!
