March 18, 2021

Developing good habits

As the first three months of the year come to a close, it is a good time to reflect on daily habits. And determine if they are pointing you in the right direction toward your goals. Or if they are ever so slightly off track and taking you further from your goals and dreams.

STEP ONE

Using your goals, identify the daily habits which would get you closer to your goals. For example, my top 4 goal areas for 2021 are:

Mindfulness
Fitness, Nutrition & Self Care
Hustle & Create
Enjoy Hobbies: new & old

In order to make progress within each of these areas, I have established daily habits that at the very least acknowledge each of these topics. At most, my daily habits create have established deliberate progress in each of these areas everyday.

EXAMPLES

In the area of mindfulness, I use the first 20 minutes of each morning (after walking Bianca) to journal and meditate. This allows me to remind myself of my goals, check-in with myself and quiet my mind before jumping into the day.
For physical health, my daily habit is to stay hydrated, do things like meal prep and now I go to the gym about 4-5 times a week.
Within the hustle and create area of my daily habits is to ensure I am fully present during my day job. This requires me to have a bed time and an earlier wake-up time. Because I do spend the majority of my days working, it has been important to have a daily routine. As much as I would prefer extreme flexibility in my schedule, I realize for my own good it is better to keep a structured day.
Lastly is my desire to expand and work on my hobbies (both old and new). Over the past two months I’ve tried a new sport. This was less of a habit and more of an action to schedule it in and actually do it. My goal in the next three months is to build in a habit to improve upon one of my hobbies.

STEP TWO

Upon reflecting on the daily habits which apply to each of your goals, you will have to hold yourself accountable. One great tool is using Habit Trackers (examples below!). Another option is to find an accountability partner to either ask about your progress OR participate in your habits with you.

My ability to stay disciplined on my own is always in full effect, however sometimes it is nice to be able to tell another, ‘YES I MADE PROGRESS!’ If you are unlike me and don’t compete with yourself on a daily basis, there are also apps for your phone that can help with this. Apps that remind you it is time to check something off of your daily list! I have never used it, but I’ve heard that the Coach.ME app is a good one (https://www.coach.me/) and it has a free option.

Either way, using a digital or paper bullet journal or habit tracker is always a great way to measure yourself. They also allow for a way to look back and adjust daily habit lists to accommodate your new goals.

HABIT TRACKERS

Throughout the past 5 or so years, using habit trackers has worked for me. Typically this tool includes a list of habits, the dates of the month and a spot to color in or tick mark off the habits which you’ve completed for that day. Below is an example and at the end of this post I’ve filled out my own for you to see.

While creating this blog post, I decided it was time to get a ‘real life’ habit tracker instead of doing it digitally or using a ruler to draw lines on a page. I ordered the one you see here, which you can also get on Amazon.

It didn’t come in time for me to put a cute picture on this post, but I am excited to start using it!

Step three

Celebrate the big wins, give yourself credit for every small win that got you there. Each day when I fill in my habit tracker, I simply thank myself for keeping the commitments to myself. Once the month has ended, I take stock of what I accomplished and the improvements that may be visible.

One great example is when I first was able to do the splits. This accomplishment was a direct result of stretching and doing yoga 5 times per week. I knew that the task of even doing 15 minutes of stretching each day was getting me closer and closer to that goal! Once I accomplished it, I gave myself the credit and continued on with my almost daily practice.