Building & Keeping Healthy Habits

Why are they so easy to lose!

How many times have you started something, felt the initial benefits from the effort only to find yourself back at square one a month later because you lost your way? Or life just took over and your good habits fell by the wayside and you didn't even notice until a month later?

First, don't beat yourself up about falling off the healthy habit wagon... This is a tough one, but an important one. We are human, no one is perfect. Even the ones that look that way on social media. An amazing friend of mine had this same conversation just last week and she posted a quote that said something to the effect of: "The reason we practice regularly is for the times that we can't". Forgive me but I can't find the post... though I strongly remember the meaning behind the words.

So, don't be hard on yourself. The good news is that you can start again, but that isn't as easy as it seems. Let's look at why.

There is a chance that you fell off that proverbial wagon for a reason... Either you started to see results and just let life get in the way because you were just so happy to now be where you are; or there was a stressful time in your life. Either way, you now find yourself lost, back at square one, though it feels like 5 steps behind even that.

Now, if you achieved some results people noticed, your family & friends commented, you felt great for that. Then your priorities shifted, you fell back into previous habits thinking that you could now 'reward' yourself with some extra TV time, a glass of wine with friends to celebrate, or your favourite snack that you had cut back on. I previously wrote an article about our sense of 'deserving' things. Head here to read it.

I'm not saying that you don't ever deserve a certain thing, but let's just stop and look at the motivation behind it and the pull it has on us. Screens are addictive and social media is set up to be highly addictive. Don't get me started on Tik Tok. So look at what it was, and if it was a celebratory reward set up, or a 'familiar' go to in order to avoid feeling something. This is the tricky one, because if you skip a day, the next day you are even less likely to get back at it and the inner guilt of knowing you won't be hitting your goal that day as well drives us to distraction. Our phones, TV, etc... Sound familiar?

Tool: Here is what I started doing. As it is an easy grab to turn on my phone and start scrolling. I stop and ask myself a simple question: What is it that I am feeling right now? Frustration, anger, sadness (who doesn't see a cute dog/animal video and feel 'better'), outrage, contempt, helplessness, loneliness, overload, stress... I could continue but I think you get the idea. So I ask myself how I am feeling, I take the moment to address the why, and often I will turn to a piece of paper to write things down and typically come up with a solution. Often, this is also a time that I can see the habit and turn it around to do something that is a healthier choice. This builds good habits. But you have to be open to feeling emotions, that is the challenging part.

Side note: There are benefits of distraction if you are being overloaded by feelings and emotions. So a few healthy distractions: journalling, creating art, cooking, cleaning up your home, reading, working on a puzzle, etc.

So let's look at stressful triggers and/or we just don't have the energy to continue with putting ourselves first. This is a tough one. There is only so much time in a day and as much as I wish for a 30 hour day, I feel like I would just fill it and be right back at square one. What do you do when you are under challenging stress? Can you look at it for what it is, temporary? Sometimes though there doesn't seem to be an end. Can you look at it as a challenge? A learning experience to negotiate the ability to put yourself first for at least 15 minutes a day to maintain a couple of healthy habits? If you can change your mindset about your stress it can drastically improve your health.

I know, this sounds like a privileged position, the thought of being able to put yourself first. So look at it this way: are you still managing to brush your teeth? Are you taking that one minute of your day to take a breath during your first sip of coffee in the morning? No, I am not saying that you are imagining everything is hunky-dory, but you are giving your nervous system a sense of calm, a connection to safety no matter how brief. What if you were to just add in a couple more aspects to maintain that connection while everything else around you is chaos?

So how do you get back on the wagon?

Be aware of how you fell off. Set up the little steps to start again.

Need some guidance? Let's chat, I can offer you a few clear strategies.