Building New Habits

If you randomly asked me, I’d tell you that I’m horrible at building habits. This is not actually true, however. What I’m bad at the mindlessly repeating actions day after day. But when it’s something that I’ve established as being meaningful to me, for whatever reason, I can build new habits. Here I’m sharing with you some of the tools and tricks that I use to build new habits.

Routines. I use routines to build multiple new habits at the same time. Usually I pair small things together so that the prospect of doing them doesn’t become too daunting. One example of this is that I wanted to change my workouts to be in the morning, and also drink more water, and remember to take my vitamins. So all of these became part of my morning routine. I set my alarm for about thirty minutes earlier, and picked a 30-minute or less series of workout videos to do. This way, it’s not too time consuming, and I also don’t have to make any decisions in the morning, just watch the next video.

Stacking. In order to build a new habit, I sometime stack it on top of an established habit, to make it easier to remember to do the new thing. When I turned 30 I wanted to start a skincare routine, so I made it a part of brushing my teeth, washing my face before brushing, and then moisturizing it after.

Simplicity. This has been a major key for me, to keep new habits that I’m trying to establish consistent. If it’s too complicated or requires too much new effort, the habit becomes a burden and I’m less likely to do it.