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October 4th, 2022
As little and insignificant as they might seem, habits are very influential and powerful parts of our lives. Habits affect and determine our behavioral patterns and they form automated fragments of our personalities.
One of the factors that make habits powerful is that they are extremely rooted in the subconscious aspect of our being, they do not need our permission or conscious indulgence to become active.
An important fact that we must all know and accept is that our habits affect us positively or negatively. As crazy as this sound, a bad habit can leave you lying in a primary care clinic or health center battling with terminal diseases for a long time. You must learn to address and deal with your bad habits while embracing and building good, helpful ones. The question is, “how do I build a good and healthy habit?”
Here are five simple steps that you can follow to build great habits.
Knowledge, they say, is power and that is one truth that applies in dealing with habits. Habits can be really tricky and difficult to handle. Studying them places you in a better position to handle them. Hence, if you want to build great habits, you can start by learning more about them.
Luckily, the internet is a hub of tons of materials that talk about everything regarding habits and the amazing part is that they come in various formats ranging from youtube videos, podcasts and audiobooks to even articles like this. By reading this article, you are already in a good position to control your life because of the new things you will learn.
A common mistake people make when working on their habits is that they start setting big goals and targets. Most times, the best way to build great habits is to begin with very small, simple targets. For instance, if you want to cultivate the habit of drinking water daily, don’t start with a huge goal like drinking 10-15 cups of water daily. Start with something as small as 5 or 6 cups of water daily. That way, you won’t get overwhelmed by the thoughts of how huge the target is. Small goals make it easier to remain motivated, monitor your progress and achieve growth.
Another strategy for building positive habits that work is by replacing bad habits with good ones. Think of it as killing two birds with one shot. This strategy is highly effective because it makes it a lot easier to declutter toxic habits and replace them with healthy ones. A good example of this is choosing to deal with a social media addiction by spending more time involved in outdoor activities than with your phone.
4. Try to be consistent through challenges, worksheets and checklists.
One of the many obstacles you will experience in building new habits is consistency. Consistency in habit building can sometimes be a struggle. A hack that has proven to be effective in dealing with inconsistency is the use of challenges, worksheets and checklists.
There are numerous materials online materials that help in building consistency. They do this by encouraging you to partake in personal challenges, measure your growth and tick off items of the checklists. Research shows that it takes an average of 30 days for you to build a habit. The use of these online materials can therefore help you build great habits in no time.
A factor that influences our habits is our immediate environment. Environments can sponsor the growth or death of a habit. If you attempt to build healthy habits, you must learn to pay attention to your environment. You must learn to avoid environments that make it easy for your bad habits to strive and difficult for good ones to flourish. For instance, if you have a bad drinking habit, then it’s best that you avoid bars and clubs until that habit is under your full control.
If you want to cultivate a strong reading habit, surround yourself and your physical environment with books that appeal to your interests. Leave a book lying in your bedroom, kitchen or any aspect of your house where you spend more time. That way you are more likely to pick up a book than when the reverse is the case.
Building the right habits that can improve your health and overall wellbeing is not as difficult as you think. With the correct approach you can build positive and healthy habits. You can contact us here to know more about how habits can affect your health or speak to a healthcare professional about any health challenges you have.
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