Alissa“I know I need to start working out, but I can’t get myself to do it.”
“Ugh, my stomach has been messed up. I know I need to eat healthier. It’s just so hard.”
A lot of people have told me lately that they wish they could commit to healthier habits. They want to work out consistently, start meditating, eat healthier, start a passion project.
They know what they want, but they just can’t seem to make it happen. They stop, put it off, find excuses why not.
And I’m not an expert, but when it comes to creating and keeping good habits, following through on my word… I’ve actually gotten pretty good at it. So, I’ll give myself credit where credit is due! Especially because I used to be pretty bad at creating healthy habits.
So first, let me be annoying and share with you some of my daily habits. Then, for perspective, I’ll tell you about how I used to suck at keeping habits. Finally, I’ll share how you can get better at making habits stick.
If you want to skip my story and get straight to the tips – scroll on down!
2019 Alissa vs. 2013 Alissa
2019
These days, I value my health and mental well-being more than anything else. If I’m not feeling good mentally or physically, the rest of my life isn’t going to be in a good place. I want to be at my best in my relationship; my friendships; my career. If I’m feeling anxious or down, it’s impossible to do that.
Because I value my general well-being, I make a point to stick to habits that I know make me feel my best. These are my daily, non-negotiable habits:
Health: I eat gluten free. I avoid dairy products (except butter and cheese). I avoid refined sugar a majority of the time. I work out at least 3 times per week.
Mental Well-Being: I meditate every morning. I write my goals and what I’m grateful for every day. I share a new blog post at least 3 times per month.
At this point, these habits have become integrated into my life. They’re second nature. I don’t sigh and get upset that I have to eat gluten free. I don’t barter with myself every morning if I should skip my meditation. I just do it.
However, it wasn’t always like that for me…
2013
In 2013, I was in college, trudging through life with crippling anxiety that I thought was normal. Truly, I assumed everyone felt neurotic and worried all the time like I did.
Health: My diet consisted of eating… basically whatever I wanted. I have a fast metabolism, which was a blessing and a curse because I never gave food or exercise a second thought. I ate all the junk food. I definitely didn’t exercise. I didn’t feel like eating healthy or working out was necessary for me.
My mom was always like, “Just go work out! It’ll help with your stress. You’ll feel so much better.”
I humored her and went to work out with my roommates a few times, but I wasn’t motivated. I didn’t like going to the gym and having to push myself. I quickly found excuses not to join them.
Mental Well-Being: I’ve always loved quotes so I did have inspiring quotes pasted all over my bedroom. And I’m thankful I was always surrounded by these positive words because even though I wasn’t acting on them at the time, I think they helped me realize what was actually possible in life.
Other than looking at uplifting quotes, I really had no other habits to calm my anxiety in a healthy way. When I was super stressed, I’d buy Swisher Sweets, drive my car down to the lake, and smoke frantically to calm myself down.
So, maybe from the outside I looked healthy. But inside, I was filled with anxiety. I was developing gut issues because of my poor eating habits and lack of healthy coping skills.
Many times, I’d been told I should eat healthier, work out, learn to manage my stress. It just seemed too hard. I’d try for a few days and stop. I was bored with it. Being healthy sucks, I thought. I was more comfortable laying on the couch eating chips and dip, feeling anxious but doing nothing about it.
Eventually, You Get Sick of Your Excuses
Eventually, I got so annoyed with myself. I was sick of my excuses. I always felt anxious, my stomach always hurt. Blah blah blah. I couldn’t keep complaining about not feeling good if I wasn’t doing anything to change it.
We all know the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If that’s the case, I was acting pretty insane.
I think many of us eventually hit a point where we get tired of breaking promises to ourselves. It gets really old, and frankly boring, to hear yourself say, “I’m going to start working out!” or “I’m going to eat healthy!” only to never follow through. Only to start the cycle again a few months later.
Want to Start Keeping Habits? Here’s What I Suggest.
1. Find Out What Type of Habit-Keeper You Are
Gretchen Rubin is an author and researcher who explores human nature, happiness, and good habits. One of her best selling books, “The Four Tendencies”, explores how we respond to expectations and what motivates us to follow through and keep our habits.
She created four archetypes, or Tendencies, that we each fit into. Our Tendency is the way we respond to expectations. To find out yours, take the quiz here. I recommend taking this quiz before continuing on. When you understand what type of habit-keeper you are, you’ll have a much better idea of how to be successful in keeping habits.
- Upholders: want to know what should be done.
- Questioners: want justifications.
- Obligers: need accountability.
- Rebels: want freedom to do something their own way.
See what I mean about the different Tendencies?
- I fall into the Upholder category, which means I will follow through on goals I set for myself with or without people holding me accountable.
- Questioners like things to make sense before they create a habit. Why is it important to drink water? What are the benefits of exercise?
- Obligers are the most common Tendency. They need to tell friends and family their new habits and be held accountable by those people or they likely won’t follow through.
- Rebels don’t like to be told what to do so they have to get creative in how they convince themselves to stick with a habit.
2. Find Your Carrot
Meaning, find your motivation. If you aren’t internally motivated to keep a habit, you’ll quit faster than you started. In the past few years, I’ve learned that I’m motivated by pain. Meaning, I’ll follow through on a habit when the pain of not keeping the habit is greater than the pain of just following through.
It’s like this. I’ve learned that when I don’t work out or meditate, my anxiety sky rockets, I start feeling depressed. I hate feeling that way! It’s a scary, dark, and unhappy place. Knowing that I’ll start feeling that way if I don’t follow through is enough to get my butt off the couch and just do it.
What’s your motivator? For many people, a positive result is super motivating. Because, don’t get me wrong, that really motivates me too. Maybe you want to see a change in your body. Maybe you want to feel healthy and energized for your family.
Let your motivator pull you through the challenging times, because inevitably, you’ll run into roadblocks. Creating a new habit is hard; that’s why so many people give up. And that’s why you need a really strong reason why you do what you do.
3. Start Small
Stick to one new habit for 30 days. Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to change your entire life in one fell swoop. If you don’t meditate, eat healthy, or work out; trying to begin all of that at once is going to be shocking! Keep it simple. Start with one habit you want to create in your life and focus on that, relentlessly, for 30 days.
When you start doing something consistently for 30 days, you’ll actually see the impact it’s having on your life. Think about it– if you’re constantly starting and stopping new habits, you’re never seeing the fruits of your labor. How can you know if something works if you’ve never seen it through?
What got me on board with eating gluten free was a 30-day elimination diet. Prior to that, I had a pretty good idea that I’d feel better if I stopped eating gluten, but I could never stick to it. Hello, I love bread. Then, I read about elimination diets and how they really help people pinpoint their digestive issues. Okay, what the hell? I’ll try it.
Well, even within that first week of being strictly gluten free, I felt so much better. I just had to stick with it to find that out.
4. Eliminate Hurdles and Make the Habit Easy to Keep
We’re human. We get tempted… to eat the late night chocolate; to sleep in instead of go for a run; to check social media before bed when we said we weren’t going to look at it past 8 pm.
This is why it’s important to know ourselves; know our hang ups; and know how to eliminate those hurdles so it’s as easy as possible to stick to our habit.
- If you want to quit eating sweets. Don’t have them in the house.
- If you want to go for a run in the morning. Wear your work out clothes to bed and make it super easy to pop up and go. If that doesn’t work, make plans for a friend to meet you for that run in the morning.
- If you want to quit checking your phone before bed. Keep it in a different room. Get an old school alarm clock to wake up to instead.
For every excuse and every reason why not, there’s an answer of why you can. If you’re only seeing the excuses, you’re not looking hard enough.
For me? Creating a habit of working out was really hard. Walking into a gym intimidates me. I don’t know where to begin. I already don’t enjoy the feeling of working out, so if I go work out by myself, I know I’ll never push myself hard enough.
So, I had to find a work out I actually somewhat enjoyed. I started going to different exercise classes– bootcamps, yoga, barre, spin. Going to these classes are the only way I’ll work out. I like having a teacher to motivate me, I like being around other people doing the same exercise as me. And frankly, having some skin in the game motivates me to go – if I pay for a class and there’s a fee if I cancel, you better believe I’ll be there!
Find what works for you. Find what makes it as easy as possible to follow through.
5. Have a Support System to Keep You Accountable
No matter what Tendency you fall into, this is important. You’ve gotta have people in your life to motivate and support you.
- Maybe you want to start working out, but you’re surrounded by shleps who like to veg out on the couch. It’s going to be tough to feel motivated for a 6am run when you’re around them. Do you have friends at work who can be work out buddies? Could you meet new friends at the gym? In spin class?
- Maybe you want to start meditating, but you live with people who think that’s weird and woo-woo. Do you have a friend who meditates that you can text for support? Is there a local meditation center you can go to? Yoga studios that offer meditation?
Find people who have similar goals as you and stick together. Keep each other accountable and motivated.
You Can Do It
Creating new habits? It’s tough. We’re creatures of habit, so when we’ve been living our lives a certain way for so long, it’s super difficult to make a change. Difficult, but not impossible. If you try and fail, try again.
Despite how it may feel at times, we’re all capable of making positive changes in our lives. Trust me, I’m the last person who ever thought I’d be eating healthy and working out. Like, what…? That was so unlike me, for so long.
The secret is finding the specific combination that works for you.
Like I said, I’m not an expert. If you’d like more resources on how to become a master at keeping healthy habits. I highly recommend checking out two actual experts– Gretchen Rubin and James Clear.
Need a friend to keep you motivated on a new habit? Holla at ‘cha girl!
Here for you,
Alissa
