Monthly Archives: January 2022

If you’ve ever gotten the bug to make radical changes, then made a bunch of sweeping decisions only to wind up confused, overwhelmed, and defeated, you likely tried to change too much too soon. Too many life changes can create stress and overwhelm for the mind as you learn how to change your lifestyle to be healthy. We are creatures of habit and when we make too many radical changes it can put our brains on tilt. The best way to make lasting changes is to start slowly and intentionally.

While there certainly are people who can simply stop doing bad habits cold turkey or adopt new habits in one fell swoop, most people need to ease into the change in order for it to last. When we try to change too much too soon, it can actually cause confusion. That’s because there is a gap of time between making the decision to change and achieving permanency. Along the way, a lot has to happen. Things like-

• Learning new skills
• Finding a better understanding of yourself
• Breaking bad habits
• Practicing new behaviors
• Developing a different viewpoint
• Developing patience and persistence

If you make too many life changes as you learn how to change your lifestyle to be healthy, there’s a risk you won’t be able to tell what’s causing problems along the way. For example- if you try to lose twenty pounds and in your efforts you

• Cut calories
• Join a spin class
• Cut out sweets
• Switch to diet soda

While it may seem like a sure-fire way to lose weight, if you make too many life changes as you learn how to change your lifestyle, it opens the door for an avalanche of problems. Simply making one of these changes can create stress and, at the very least, require a time of adjustment. Tackling all of them at once can be too much. Instead focus on one micro shift in behavior and once you have adjusted, add another micro change. Here are the benefits-

Micro changes allow for you to adjust to a new habit or stop a bad habit one at a time

Micro changes allow time to see what resistance pops up so you can manage it and move on

Micro changes help you see your strengths and weaknesses clearly

Micro changes reduce the odds of experiencing overwhelm and quitting

Be patient, there’s no reason to race to the finish line when you want to make changes. Be focused and intentional and create a list of the things you’d like to change. Find the behavior that’s most appealing and build a new habit around it. Once you’ve mastered it, add a new behavior and so on and so on. In the end you’ll be more likely to adjust to the new routine and the changes will be sustainable and permanent.

There are no limits to the types of sustainable lifestyle habits you can create to help get yourself headed in the right direction. There are unlimited ways to begin to do new things in new ways but remember something important- less is more. This is especially true when it comes to sustainable healthy eating habits. Sustainable lifestyle habits are similar to micro habits. They are teeny, tiny actions that on their own may seem insignificant, but they are perfect for building lasting change.

Keep Your Focus on Sustainable Lifestyle Habits

Micro habits should be geared towards one thing, sustainability. Whatever micro habit you create, it should become something you can activate, repeat, and eventually internalize so it becomes automatic. This is especially true of sustainable healthy eating habits that require a less is more approach.

A great example of a micro habit could look like this: If you frequently misplace your keys, you can create the micro habit of hanging them on a hook beside the door every time you enter your home. This becomes a sustainable lifestyle habit as you grow to expect the keys to be hanging by the door. This becomes a priority to hang them up as soon as you come in inside of dropping them wherever you sit down.

In the beginning, it will take conscious effort to remind yourself to hang the keys as you walk in. If done repeatedly, the action will become automatic and you won’t have to consciously think about it again. The micro habit eventually becomes automatic and the result is you never waste time or are late because you don’t misplace your keys.

Break Your Habit Down to the Barest Minimum to create sustainable lifestyle habits

Designing a micro habit requires breaking it down to the barest minimal essence of a task. Think of it like a step-by-step plan towards a goal. If you set a goal to ‘Eat Healthy’ you can create sustainable healthy eating habits by breaking the goal down until you create a micro habit that supports the goal and is sustainable for your lifestyle. A few examples of a micro habit to ‘Eat Healthy’ could be

• Carry an apple with you in your bag
• Eat one veggie per meal
• Drink one glass of water an hour before bed
• Eat fruit with breakfast

Any of these sustainable lifestyle habits will be easy to adopt and easily become a habit that is automatic over time. Carrying an apple with you can open up opportunities to not snack and create sustainable healthy eating habits. Eating one veggie per meal or drinking water an hour before bed can also help ease hunger. Creating the micro habit helps steer you towards the overall goal.

Did you know!? The great thing about sustainable lifestyle habits is they build on one another. Once a micro habit becomes automatic, it’s a great time to piggy back off of it and add a new micro habit. An example could be piggy backing drinking more water with eating healthier. After mastering a micro habit for adding more veggies in, you can tag a new micro habit that supports increasing water with it. An example could be

In between meals, I drink a 16 oz glass of water

When I wake up in the morning before breakfast I drink 32oz of water

Adding positive micro habits together increases their value and adds to your overall best practices in life. These can build to create sustainable healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime. Anytime that you come off track you can easily regroup and rebuild the sustainable lifestyle habits that you started. For more tips, insights, and tools please sign up for our mini series 10 Habits in Ten Days.

They say we are the sum of the Best Ways to Change Habits that influence us the most. For the most part, we are the sum of…

• The five foods we eat most often
• The five people we spend the most time with
• The five ways we recreate on a regular basis
• The five resources we use most to educate ourselves
• And more!
• The Best Ways to Change Habits are Influenced by Our Environment

The ways to change habits are greatly influenced by our environment. The things we do regularly, the people we see, the activities we engage in are all molded in the environment we live in. When the environment is healthy, the best ways to change habits tend to follow. In the same way, an unhealthy environment can promote unhealthy habits. If we are truly seeing ways to change habits then it is easier to change things that can tempt us into an old habit including our environment.

It’s entirely possible to adopt bad habits in a good environment. It’s common to become sedentary or eat unhealthy foods even when you live among health-conscious people. These are all personal choices. The good news is, in this type of situation it’s fairly easy and one of the best ways to change habits and make positive changes when your environment helps support you.

When your environment isn’t great, it can be harder to break free and find ways to change habits.

Our environment is shaped by culture. Family, religion, career, and friendship all have a culture and it’s normal to be driven by being the same or similar to the culture. Breaking free can be hard, even when it’s the healthiest and best thing to do.

Change Your Environment, Change Your Life – One of the Best Ways to Change Your Habits

You have a lot of control over the five things that influence you the most. Even if you can’t control every aspect of your life, you can still make the best of the available choices no matter what. In many cases, changing your environment can be one of the ways to change habits by building better micro habits. Here are some ideas that can help-

Take a walk during lunch –

If your co-workers tend to get take out or go out to eat, shifting your focus during your lunch break can help. Set a micro habit of walking during your lunch break and use the time to be physically active rather than social. This can prove to be one of the best ways to change habits for physical health and well being.

Read during television time –

Your family may relax and decompress by watching television. You can shift your focus and use the time to read, study self-help, or do something else that’s for your benefit. You don’t have to leave the room, just use your time in a different manner. This is one of the ways to change habits of watching too much television or building on your knowledge and wisdom.

Make a salad for dinner –

Your family may be the meat and potatoes sort, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make small shifts. One of the best ways to change habits of healthy eating are to create the micro habit of adding a salad to the dinner table each night. You may be the only one who eats it, but the small shift in the environment can make a big difference and one of the ways to change habits of eating.

Changing the environment you are in helps make adopting micro habits a bit easier. Shifting the focus and reducing the influences of others makes it easier to create new habits that work for you with or without their support. Even if you do not have direct control over your environment you do have control over how you operate within the environment that you are in. Making small changes can help you shift your habit and build micro habits that lead to having a healthier lifestyle. If you are seeking coaching, education, or support around healthy habits please check out one of our many only courses, bundles, and education found on our website.

Coming to the decision to make changes is a process and there are many signs you need a major life change such as feelings and thoughts of burnout, frustration, depression, chronic unhappiness, etc. It takes time to decide that thoughts, behaviors, and attitudes need to shift and it can take some openness to admit. Asking yourself the question is ready to change can be helpful. It’s rare that a light bulb goes off and your mind makes the swift decision to change. It’s more likely that you’ll go through a process before making the final decision. As a matter of fact, there is a cycle that everyone goes through on their way to deciding to change. If you’ve been considering changing your habits and have identified that you are ready to change, you are likely somewhere on the scale. Although signs you need a major life change vary the process of change remains the same. It looks like this-

1. Pre-contemplation
2. Contemplation
3. Preparation
4. Action
5. Maintenance

Pre-contemplation- Way before people make the final decision to change, they get inklings, warnings, nudges, or bits of insight that a change may be a good idea. These may be signs you need a major life change- you do not like your job, your relationships, your attitude, you emotionally or mentally do not feel your best just to name a few. In this phase of the cycle, there is likely no intention to make changes only the pre-thought that perhaps a change is in order. This can also be a phase when others make comments, give feedback, or share concerns that they have that indicate you may need to evaluate the need to change and people can sometimes ask themselves or each other are you ready to change?

Contemplation- This phase begins when the inkling to change starts to grow. This is a dynamic stage because the mind is often at war with the benefits of changing versus the benefits of keeping things the same. Signs you need a major life change grows as you become more unwilling to tolerate the stress or burden of the thing you need to change. Perhaps you fight with your partner more or become less and less interested to come to work. Until the benefits of change outweigh the benefits of changing, there likely won’t be any commitment to changing habits but you can still be questioning are ready to change in your mind.

Preparation- When change seems like a proper next step, preparation begins. Time frames may be set or actions may be triggered. You have decided that the signs you need to make a life change have become obvious and you are now ready to make the leap. Now you need to get set up This could look like joining a gym, signing up for a meal delivery service, or making an appointment with a holistic doctor. Planning for action is the natural step that precedes changing habits. No longer are you asking yourself are you ready to change you are actively seeking change.

Action- The action phase can be lengthy or quite short depending on how much time it takes to internalize the new habits. This is a tough time because the action and implementation of new habits reveal roadblocks and things can easily fall back into old patterns. Sometimes you forget all the original signs that you needed a major life change and have stopped asking yourself the question are you ready to change because in your mind you have already started the process. Keeping your purpose that eh top of mind is always helpful to keep you motivated during the process of action.

Maintenance- Once enough action has taken place and the new habits are routine and automatic, it’s all about maintaining the rhythm and keeping up the good work. The signs that you need a major life change have dwindled and now you are fully engaged in your new lifestyle, habit, or life experience. This can take some time to get to, some suggest 21 days, 45 days, and even some say it takes even longer than that. Once you have reached this point, it is easy, you can incorporate the habit with ease and minimal effort.

Note: Be prepared to re-cycle.
At any time during the process, it’s possible to break the cycle and re-cycle through again. It’s normal. It’s normal to forget to ask yourself are you ready for a change? Sometimes, it takes longer to move through the cycle in one phase and shorter in another. Everyone has their own pace. Once changes become permanent and the experience of change has normalized it gets easier to make changes in the future because you know what works best for you at each stage of the cycle.

You can gauge your readiness for change by finding yourself on the scale. Be confident that change will happen when the time is right. If you need tips, help, and support we are always there for you with classes, courses, consultations, and more.

There’s a lot of info out there about goal setting. Businesses routinely create goals and a lot of people start the new year with a list of fresh goals hoping to make positive changes in their lives. Goals are important. They represent ideas, hopes, and dreams. If you’ve set goals before you know the excitement of creating a vision and setting your sights on achieving it. Setting goals is important, but goals don’t mean anything if you don’t create a system instead of goals to reach them. Change your habits and change your life.

While goals are important, habits may actually be more important. Here are three reasons why-

Goals are Inspiring, Habits are Sustaining

Goals are Complex, Habits are Easy

Goals are Finite, Habits are Endless

Sustainability is more important than inspiration-

Goals can be very inspiring. Dreaming up new ideas can get anyone excited about the possibilities. In the goal-setting phase, nothing is off-limits. As the saying goes- if you can dream it you can do it, right? Not always. Goals are very inspiring and can get you motivated to make changes, but as soon as the motivation wanes, so does your inspiration. By creating a system instead of goals you create habits that are sustainable. Creating, engaging in, and adopting a habit morphs it into something automatic that you can do whether you are inspired to or not. Brushing your teeth doesn’t require inspiration, it simply happens because it’s a sustainable, routine hygiene habit. Change your habits, change your life!

Ease is more important than doing things the hard way-

Goals are complex because they don’t take into account roadblocks, unforeseen issues, or how realistic their achievement is. Goals are easily abandoned when they get hard because there isn’t a system in place to reach them. If you create a system instead of goals you begin to make habits that are easy because they are small. Done consistently, they become effortless. Building a system of habits may take time, but in the end, it’s easier to get where you want to go by adding easy-to-do habits together. Change your habits to change your life the easy way!

Building a lifetime of good habits is more important than reaching a goal-

Goals are finite. If you decide to run a marathon, your goal ends with the finish line. If you create a system instead of goals you begin to develop the habit of running each day, you have a life-long health habit that surpasses the goal of running a marathon. Setting a goal to make a specific amount of money by a certain due date is a great goal, but developing the habit of making consistent income and saving every time you are paid builds wealth.

Having goals is a great thing, but it’s more important to build habits that help you reach and surpass your goals. In the end, you can’t reach your goals without developing key habits that make it possible. If you would like to download our habit tracker please sign up for our email here:

3 Reasons Habits are More Important than goals

If you want to change your habits it is best you drop the goal setting and create a system instead of goals.

3 reasons habits are more important than goals are

Habits help you sustain, they are consistent, deliberate, and extend over a period of time.

Unlike…

Goals that are inspiring, we get very motivated when we first think of the goal – but then quickly get bored, frustrated, or stuck when we recognize what is involved.

Habits are easy bite-size pieces, that we work step by step whereas

Goals can be complex, multifaceted with a lot of steps

Habits are endless, they go on and on with many applications. A habit in one area of your life can easily help you in another. Take organization and the habit of putting things away after you are done with them. This habit can translate in an organized mind, organized emotions, and even organized time management.

Goals are finite and typical. We often set consistent goals like making a lot of money or meeting the partner of our dreams. Goals are big concepts, while habits are endless universal, and are versatile. A daily habit that supports you in one area of your life can also assist in another area of your life.

If you are ready to create a system instead of goals and change your habits. If you are interested in a habit tracker please sign up for our email list below and if you like these tips feel free to subscribe, share, and comment on your questions.