Changing habits is hard. There’s a reason why the anti-smoking and diet industries are million and billion dollar industries.
Lots of us have bad habits around food. Whether it’s night-time binging, too much coffee or those 3:00pm sweets, these habits become deeply ingrained and it can feel almost impossible to break them for good.
Here are five strategies that will help you finally be successful in creating a new story for yourself:
1. Figure Out Your Big Reason Why
This is really important, don’t skip this step. When things get tough – and they will get tough – and everything in you wants to throw in the towel and go back to your old habit, this is what is going to get you through.
Why do you really want to make this change? This needs to be a big reason that really resonates with something deep inside you. It can’t be anything vague like you want to lose weight or feel healthier.
Why do you want to lose weight? Is it because you want to live longer and be there to see your kids grown up and meet your grandkids? Is it because you want to step into a place of abundant energy, lightness and confidence? Really spend some time thinking about this. Write it down, make it the screen saver on your phone, really make this big reason why part of your daily life.
2. Work on Changing One Habit at a Time
Often we feel miserable and frustrated with many things in our lives and we really want them all to change at the same time. We want to wake up tomorrow as the person we envision ourselves being. But the reality is that you can’t do everything at once and enormous change like that rarely happens overnight.
A better strategy is to pick one thing that you want to change, start there, and once you’ve had success there, move onto the next thing.
So, don’t set an intention of “eating healthier” or “exercising,” instead choose something like, “cutting out sugar soda,” or “walking for 30 min every day.” These are smaller habits that are specific and much easier to tackle and clearly see your success.
3. Make a Plan
I love the old saying, “fail to plan and you plan to fail.” Too often people decide they want to make a change and their entire plan consists of “starting Monday!” This will not be enough to support you when things get tough and you want to go back to your old ways.
Set a date to start your change and then sit down and make a plan for how the first week of your change will look. If you’re committing to 30 minutes of walking a day, when will you do it each day? Look at your real calendar and write it in. What will you do if it’s raining? What will you do if you feel tired and don’t want to go? How will you motivate yourself? Think about all of these things and how you will address them now and not when you’re feeling raw and vulnerable.
4. Find Something Positive to Replace Your Negative Habit With
This is technically part of the plan I just mentioned above but I think it’s so important that it deserves to be its own point. This is absolutely imperative for success. You cannot just remove a habit that you’ve been relying for ages and not replace it with something else to fill the void.
So, if you’re trying to stop eating junk food at night, find something else that will give you the comfort in the evening that the food did. Or, if you’re trying to quit coffee in the morning, find a healthier warm beverage with which to start your day.
5. Find Support and Accountability
It can be very difficult to break long-term habits without some kind of ongoing support and accountability to help you.
Today, with the online world, this is easier than ever. With just a few clicks you can find friends or groups or forums of other people who want to make similar changes where you can build a community – small or large – to give you the support and accountability you’ll need to finally break your bad habit.
I encourage you to join my own Facebook group – The Fueling Station – where you’ll find an awesome community of amazing people, many of which may well be open and eager to join you as accountability partners and you can post any time and find genuine and loving support from myself and hundreds of others who – just like you – are striving to find a healthier path in life.
