What is a habit?
A habit is a behavior which is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. The American Journal of Psychology defined a “habit, from the standpoint of psychology, [as] a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience.
Why are habits important for your health?
- Habits allow you to get more consistent results from the actions you take
- Habits help you to get yourself into a routine towards success and accountability
- By embedding habits, you develop effective routines and behaviours which work for you now and in an ongoing way
- You are less likely to fall off the wagon of eating too much, not meditating, not exercising, if you have embedded good habits along the way
H ealth
To have good health – spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally, you need to put certain actions and behaviours in place and to do them regularly, whether this is regularly meditating, holding your gratitude stone, writing in your journal or going swimming every morning. By regularly applying these actions consistently, you embed the actions and they become a habit. To learn a new habit takes up to 28 times repeated actions. Most people don’t embed positive habits to do with their health as they give up too soon which then contributes to them believing that they are a failure. Consistency is key as well as not trying to embed too many habits at one time.
A ttitude
What is your attitude towards embedding new habits? Do you think it will be easy or do you think it will be really hard? Remember your mind is a projector, so think about what you want to achieve rather than what you don’t. If you have the right attitude, of positivity and gratitude, you will enjoy embedding the new habits you want to adopt.
B eliefs
As Gandhi said, ‘your beliefs become your thoughts’, so it is important to review your thoughts at all times when you are finding it hard to change your habits or you are sensing some resistance. By changing your beliefs (often about yourself and others), and letting this negative energy go, you will find it easier to stick to a new habit. One which moves you towards the goals you are seeking such as a clearer mind, more energy, losing weight, etc. Acceptance and compassion for yourself and others is key.
I ntuition
Getting in tune with your intuition really helps you to change your habits and to stick to them. When you are being intuitive, you know what is right or wrong for you without question. You trust your gut and instinctively know what is good for you. You will intuitively follow habits or a new health routine as you have embedded them with good intentions. When you don’t trust your intuition and you go against what you instinctively know is right for you, you will increase your levels of anxiety and will find it harder to embed habits.
T ime
We often waste time and energy by being mindless with our time. We give the wrong things our energy such as social media or over helping others around us – kids, elderly parents, charities, etc. Often we are too busy being busy and are not noticing our patterns from within. We have set up some very bad habits around time e.g. not using a diary, not planning our day, checking our emails multiple times throughout the day, scrolling on social media, etc. Every distraction we have, takes us another 15 minutes to refocus and concentrate fully!
S elf sabotage
A massive habit you need to embed is the need to accept and to love yourself. If you don’t, your health will always be affected and by living in a prolonged stress response state, you will almost certainly struggle with longevity of life. Self sabotage is a normal behaviour, usually linked to past trauma in your mind/body which makes you sabotage your progress. You feel this like ‘resistance’ in the body. Resistance to changing habits or looking after yourself. By recognising the resistance, you can then take action to let go of this negative energy. As mentioned in beliefs, you need to change your thoughts. Your thoughts are linked to emotions and you need to understand how you are feeling emotionally to change and release the thoughts/energy which are stopping you from embedding a good habit. You may also wish to use an energy technique on yourself to make this process easier such as The Balance Procedure or Reiki as emotions are ‘energy in motion’ and these techniques will help you to shift the energy quickly. https://insightfulminds.co.uk/the-balance-procedure/
What are good healthy habits for you to embed?
According to the personal development specialist Will Polston of the Evolve Network the following make you more efficient, effective and energised. To embed them effectively, only embed 5 items per month, so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.
Top 25 tips to be more efficient, effective and energised……..
1. Set the week ahead tasks on a Monday morning latest.
2. Have 7 things on your daily to do list maximum, if you complete them then add more.
3. Have a structure to your day with allocated time for tasks
4. Say “No” more often.
5. Have a self love list of things you enjoy doing and check your doing them weekly.
6. Do the most important task of the day first.
7. Get 7-9 hours sleep.
8. Exercise in the morning.
9. Meditate using Headspace/Brain FM/Muse.
10. Use the Pomodoro technique 25/5 or 50/10 minutes working / having a break.
11. Read your life goals at least once a week.
12. Have an agenda for every meeting.
13. If you know when you typically feel low on energy i.e. 4pm get some fresh air, drink water, and eat around 30 minutes beforehand.
14. Drink 2 litres of water minimum a day.
15. Avoid eating big meals during the day.
16. Check emails twice a day.
17. Tell people to stop distracting you unnecessarily.
18. Use background music or Brain FM when working.
19. Start the day doing something proactive for you i.e. meditation not reactive for someone else i.e. emails.
20. Have a clean, clear, tidy and comfortable work environment.
21. Block out regular tasks in your diary with reoccurring reminders.
22. Reward yourself for completing tasks even if that is a walk or a stretch.
23. Turn off all social media notifications on your smart phone.
24. Combine tasks wherever possible i.e. listen to audio books whilst ironing.
25. Use the power of Parkinson’s law by setting challenging deadlines to get tasks done quicker.
If you are struggling to embed your new habits and are self sabotaging badly, do get in touch with Liz at liz@insightfulminds.co.uk to work on clearing the negative energy causing you to self sabotage or to learn energy techniques such as The Balance Procedure, Reiki or Meditation.
