Here is a superb post from House Rep Andy Mackenzie on the power of creating habits…read and apply! (Take a look at the picture above and see where good habits can get you)

You may have been expecting an article on the 1st January, along with all the missives from the masses of trainers and coaches out there encouraging you to set goals to aid in your fat loss or fitness endeavours in 2011.

Of course, all your goals had to be SMART… and by Day 3, you were slipping right back into those old habits.  BOOM… habits is the magic word here, not goals.

Habits are what we do best.  It’s how we become consistently good or bad at anything and trust me; habit forming is the real key to success.

In the long term, you should look at creating good habits that will have a positive impact on your life, habits that make you feel amazing, make you feel full of energy and keep you walking the path you always envisaged.

All this is easily achieved by doing one thing right at a time.  Each time you make that thing a habit, you will consciously feel that you are achieving what you set out to do.  That very feeling will do more for your brain chemistry than any supplement!

This article will benefit any reader who wishes to create good habits in order to achieve success.  So let’s get started….

The first thing you need to do is to forget about all the books and articles you have read on dieting, health, fitness etc.  Start listening to your own body and how it responds, it will tell you everything you need to know.  You are your own expert from now on.

Pick one thing, and apply a good habit to it.  Don’t worry about anything else, tackling all that we wish to is like eating a whole apple, we are starting by taking the first bite.  An example of good habit to start with is by deciding that every morning, as soon as you wake up, you will drink a glass of water.  Squeeze in half a lemon, if you like, it will help your digestion, ‘massage’ the liver and improve the taste.   We’ll go into the quality of the water at a later date but for now, we are interested in building a habit.

How can you make building this habit even easier?  Take these effortless steps:

  • Get your glass out ready the night before
  • Put a post it note on the fridge, or by the kettle to remind you
  • Put your lemon next to glass with a knife so you are not searching

As soon this habit becomes automatic, make another one to have a glass of water with every meal.  Don’t worry about how long it make take you to form this habit, just keep using the reminder system such as the steps above until such time that you simply don’t need reminding.  You’ll be rehydrating your body more than ever before and that alone will make a huge difference to how you are feeling.  You’ll feel great because all of your body’s millions of reactions and processes are made more effortless with simple, healthy hydration.

What about exercise?  If you are completely new to exercise or recuperating from illness, pop on your shoes, walk out of your front door and keep walking for 5 minutes.  At the 5 minute point, turn around and walk back home.  Do this twice the first week and three times the second week.  In the third week, walk three times and walk for 7-8 minutes.  In the fourth week, walk 8-10 minutes and so.  Sounds really easy?  It is.  And you are forming a simple habit that will serve you throughout your life.   When you can carry out three 20 minute walks per week, then we can talk about moving up the exercise ladder and more importantly some of the exercise challenges as part of the daily 100 reps.

Again, take these effortless steps to ensure habit forming is simple and straightforward:

  • Get together the clothes, shoes and outerwear you may need ie waterproof jacket for rain, gloves and hot for a cold spell, trainers etc
  • Keep them in all to hand in the same place
  • Take the dog or your partner for some quality to talk – with your partner, not the dog…
  • Take note of the distance on each session by using an easy landmark eg ‘walked to the bus stop’ or ‘walked 20 metres past the church’.

On the opposite end of the scale, you could already be fit, eat well and have lots of energy throughout the day.  So what good habits could you form?  Do you carry out mobility or flexibility sessions as part of recovery? Do you even have recovery days? It could be as simple as performing 5 minutes of mobility work pre session and increase this time, as it becomes part of your routine.  Equally, it could actually be ensuring that you have that recovery day and then spending 10 minutes working on any inflexibility that you may have (same 10 minutes as the person walking as part of their initial daily exercise habit).

Contrary to what others say about exercise and dieting and regardless of the end result, it doesn’t have to be full on from day one.  The important thing is to build on small successes with everything you do, always moving forward, gradually feeling better, both in body and more importantly, in mind.

Your next habit will be around your breakfast choice.  For now, put your water and walking habits into place or make sure you actually do a proper recovery day.

As Confucius says ‘it does not matter how slowly you go as long you do not stop’.

Andy McKenzie ASCC