Our Habits Shape Who We Are - How Are Yours?

Most of our daily habits are performed without a second thought—brushing our teeth before bed, washing our hands after using the bathroom, closing the car door, and turning off lights as we leave a room. These actions have become so ingrained in our routines that we perform them automatically.

The goal with health and well-being habits should be to incorporate several positive habits into our daily lives while eliminating or replacing as many negative ones as possible.

This post serves as a prompt to reflect on your habits. Are they primarily healthy, or have some unhealthy ones become consistent in your life? Consider your day-to-day life: how are you doing with nutrition, movement, sleep, mindset, self-talk, and phone use? Do you train consistently? Do you live an active life, and would it benefit your health if you continued living the way you are now?

Now that you've done an honest review of your current habits and identified areas needing improvement, the first step is accepting this and deciding to take action. The next step is to create a plan for establishing good habits or replacing bad ones. Here are a few tips to help make that process more successful:

1. Identify Your Why: Understand why forming this new habit is important. A strong reason to commit to the change will help keep you on track when motivation wanes.

2. Visualise Success: Imagine your life with the new habit ingrained. How do you feel? What has changed? How do things look?

3. Be Realistic: Assess your current situation and the upcoming weeks or months. What is possible during that time? What factors might affect your efforts to change?

4. Explore Your Options: Consider the easiest ways to implement the new habit, potential barriers, and who might help you or hold you accountable.

5. Develop a Detailed Plan: Outline the first step, set milestones along the way, and determine your commitment to the plan.

My 3 Favorite Tips for Implementing Habits

1. Habit Stacking: Add the new habit to an existing one. For example, add 10 minutes of breathwork to your morning routine immediately after eating breakfast.

2. Make Them Obvious: Use visual reminders to implement the new habit. For instance, if you want to add 10 minutes of reading to your bedtime routine, place your book on your pillow so you'll be reminded to read before getting into bed.

3. Never Miss Twice: If you miss a habit once, get back on track the next day before it becomes a pattern.

Use these tips to take action to shape the habits that define who you are and who you want to become.

Remember: Our Habits Shape Who We Are.