Have you ever set out to add something new into your routine but struggled after a few weeks? You aren’t alone! This is so common when it comes to building habits and it leaves us feeling like we failed. The truth is though that habit change is hard and takes time. You may have some setbacks before you are truly successful and that is completely normal! In this post I am going to tell you what I’ve learned about habit change. Plus how I was able to shift my mindset from needing quick results to being ok with the journey taking longer!
I can totally understand wanting those quick wins. It is really hard to put in a ton of work and have little reward. The biggest thing you have to remember is you are trying to build lifelong habits for your health. Quick results are fantastic and make us feel great but do they last? We both know for the most part, they don’t!
Habit Change Is Hard
Think about a time you wanted to make a change to your daily routine. This could be with your diet, fitness routine, or literally anything in your life. You decide to make a change, big or small, and it starts out going super well and then you stop. Can you think of a time this has happened to you? I can literally name 5 times I’ve done this without giving it much thought.
See our intentions are good but the truth is change is hard and usually harder than we even anticipate! Before you go into making a new change or building a new habit, be honest with yourself. Realize this is not going to be easy.
I’m not saying this to be negative. I totally agree we have to be positive in our thinking but we also need to be realistic. You can have a positive mindset about your change but also acknowledge that it will be hard.
Start Small
This one is probably the biggest thing I’ve learned and also what I talk about most! I see this happen the most when people want to change their diet or start exercising. We go from not paying any attention to what we are eating to counting every single calorie in the romaine lettuce in our salad.
The problem with making drastic changes like this is it gets extremely overwhelming and hard to sustain. Then we quit because let’s face it, our lives can be hard enough at times. This is the problem with starting with so much change all at one time. Instead of doing this, let’s start with less change.
This could look like ordering a side salad with your meal instead of getting fries or cooking 5 nights a week instead of the 3 you were doing. Once we get used to that we make another change and continue doing that until you’ve made all the changes you wish.
Dealing With Setbacks
I’m going to be super honest and upfront with you here. You are going to experience setbacks. You are going to fall back into old habits when trying to build new ones. It is so common and you are human! The thing to remember when this happens is to just show back up again. If you can commit to always showing back up you can be successful.
You can’t let yourself get lost in feeling like you failed because you fell into old habits. When you throw in the towel, that is when you truly fail!
So there you have it, the key things I’ve learned about building habits. It’s hard and being honest with yourself upfront will help a whole lot. I always tell myself, easy results don’t last! Pick something you can do right now that will help you get towards the result you want! You got this!
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