If you want to be more productive in your life, the trick is to consistently change – and you do that by consistently tweaking and changing your habits. There are so many areas of your life that require new habits, including your health, relationships, career, home, and mind. In other words, you will never run out of new habits to implement into your life.
5 Reasons To Consistently Build A New Habit
1. Change Your Life For The Better
The biggest reason to consistently work on building a new habit is that your life will change. Of course, if you don’t want your life to change, this reason will do nothing for you. 🤔
But, if you want more out of life – more happiness, better relationships, better health, and more success – then you can’t keep doing what you are doing, or you will keep getting what you are getting. You need to do things differently in order to get different results. Building new habits will allow you to do that.
Good habits also free up more time, which is a huge life-changer. You do fewer things that cause anxiety, guilt, or sadness, which are all huge time wasters, and you can use that time to focus on things that really matter.
And, as you develop new habits, your relationships start to improve. You become happier, which has a big impact on your relationships. And, you will find yourself wanting to work on your relationship habits knowing how beneficial forming good habits can be.
Lastly, you could expand your longevity by adding in new, healthy habits. For instance, adding in 30 minutes of walking a day can reduce the chance of you dying prematurely. It’s a little habit, but it can have a big impact on your life.
2. You Will Become Addicted To Working On New Habits
Take it from me, when you start to actively build up new habits, it becomes addicting. When you see the positive changes in your life and experience the thrill of forming a new habit, you will want to do it all over again.
If you are someone who can’t seem to find the strength or consistent desire to build new habits, you need to try to take this challenge. It will get you started and keep you going because challenges motivate you to keep going.
When you set out on a challenge, and you finish so many days of that challenge, the desire to finish out is a huge motivator to keep going despite feelings of boredom, anxiety, or uncertainty.
3. Build Your Self-Confidence
Want to be more confident? Great! Take on the challenge of consistently building new habits. The challenge aspect itself boosts your confidence as you cross off the number of days you stay committed.
But, when you form the new habit, you feel proud, validated, and pretty darn awesome. You feel like you are actively taking part in making your life better. And, you feel more in control of your life and what happens in it. All of that together gives you a pretty good confidence boost, and it just gets better each time you take on a new habit challenge and complete it.
4. Habits Reduce Stress
When you replace bad habits with good habits, life gets less stressful. This is because habits are automatic, which means each new good habit you build becomes automatic and you no longer have to force yourself to do it. That removes a huge amount of stress from your body because it doesn’t have to exert a lot of energy to do that thing anymore.
For example, if you want to brush your teeth every morning, but you are in the habit of skipping a morning brush, then it requires effort to go to the bathroom, pick up the toothbrush, and brush your teeth. You may feel resistance, or you may feel a small amount of stress because you would rather just head downstairs and get on with your day. That takes up your energy and adds stress to the body. But, when you develop the habit of brushing your teeth every morning, the stress goes away. It’s something you do and no resistance or stress occurs.
This works for every new habit you want to build. It takes effort to do something when it’s not a habit, but once it becomes a habit, your body doesn’t need to exert that effort and feel that stress, because it just becomes an automatic behavior.
5. Your Mind And Body Will Thank You
When you want to implement a new habit into your life, it’s to improve your mind or body on some level.
You want to have a healthier body, so you change your diet, fitness, or stress management habits.
Or, you want to have a healthier mind, so you change the way you talk to yourself, your study habits, or your work habits.
The best part is that most habits meant for one aspect of your life will influence other aspects of your life positively.
As we said, stress is reduced and that’s good for both your body and mind. Stress has a big impact on your thoughts, behavior, feelings, and body.
Your awareness will also increase, which is great for your mind and body. The more aware you become about yourself, how your habits are affecting you, and how to live in a way that promotes health and happiness, the healthier your mind and body will become.
You Can Change Your Habits
That old saying, ‘You can’t teach a dog new tricks’ is crap. You can change your habits. Some habits are harder than others to form, but by getting yourself in the right mindset and taking the right action, it’s possible to change any habit.
Challenge Yourself To Commit To Building Your New Habit Until It’s Formed
A minimum of 30 days – that’s the time most people will tell you that you need to commit to forming a new habit. But, some people say it takes much longer that – with an average being around 66 days, while other people say that an easy habit could take much less time. Instead of stressing out about how many days it will take for you to form your habit, just focus on committing to consciously practicing a new habit until it’s formed.
1. Decide Which Habit You Want To Build
If you don’t already know which habit you want to challenge yourself to commit to, then read this article on How To Decide Which Good Habits You Need To Develop First or get clear on your goals and decide which habit would be most important to reaching those goals.
2. Know Your Cues And Rewards
Make sure you are aware of the cues that cause you to do unhealthy things and the rewards that you get from doing unhealthy things. This will help you recognize potential problems in building your new habits and give you a better plan going forward. Read about cues, routines, and rewards here.
3. Don’t Make It Too Big
If possible, you can always increase the size of your habit down the line. Starting too big can make things really uncomfortable and cause you to fail.
For instance, don’t try to start a habit of walking 2 hours a day if you walk 0 hours a day now. While you want your new habit to have an impact on your life, you also want to make sure it’s somewhat comfortable for you. Start with 15 minutes or 30 minutes, and once you master that, then you can add an extra 30 minutes or so and work on that new habit.
4. Track Your Progress
You can use a software like Goals on Track to remind you of your daily habit, keep track of how many days you’ve consistently accomplished your habit, and motivate you to keep going.
You can also write it down in a bullet journal or a notebook and keep track manually. However, if you do that, it’s important to also create a new habit of checking your journal or notebook each morning or evening to keep a record of how far you’ve come and other things important to the habit.
5. Increase Your Knowledge Around The Habit
If you really want to make a habit stick, do your research around it. Gather as much information as you can about why this habit will benefit you and your life. The more positive things you know about the habit’s impact, the more motivated you will be to stick with it.
Also, knowledge will help you overcome roadblocks. For instance, if you are trying to get into the habit of eating healthier, knowing how to order healthy food when a surprise supper out with friends occurs will help you stick with your new habit.
6. Tell Other People About Your Challenge
One of the best ways to stay committed to your challenge is to tell other people about it. Being accountable helps you push yourself to do things, even if you don’t feel like doing it.
You can write about your challenges in a blog.
Or, you can participate in a forum and talk about your new habit and how you are challenging yourself to form it.
And for maximum results, you can tell your friends and family about the new habit and why you want to form it, and be accountable to the people directly in your life who you have to come face-to-face with often.
7. Celebrate
When you form a new habit, celebrate! Forming a new, positive habit deserves to be celebrated! And, your celebration will help you get excited to do the next step.
8. Start Over
This challenge is not about forming one new habit. It’s about working on building a new habit always – from now until you are dead.
Don’t worry, you will never run out of new habits to bring into your life. You can always improve. You can always grow. And, when you take on this challenge for life, you’re guaranteed to do both.
