How to build healthy habits?

Would you also like to read more books, exercise more frequently and lower your debt with the bank?

The answer to these and other goals that you set for yourself is the same: Build healthy habits! Your life is made up of the sum of your habits. Your finances are the sum of your economic habits. Your knowledge is the sum of your study habits.

And I say "the sum" because no change happens thanks to a single action.

Why is it so difficult to build habits?

What do we understand by habit? A habit is that action that you do consistently and automatically.

If you feel that it is difficult for you to implement habits, it does not mean that something is wrong with you. It is probably the system you are using that is not allowing you to incorporate the habit. Because if something doesn't feel right, you're not going to keep it in your life for long.

That's why, your habits must be aligned with your values. That way they will naturally integrate into your daily life and you will be able to achieve the consistency needed to achieve the goal you want.

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The sum of small actions are those that generate big changes

Let's look at a very common example. A person with a lean, ripped body doesn't look like that because she's been on a diet for a week. On the contrary, it is the result of having maintained a healthy and consistent routine in various areas such as diet, exercise, hydration, among others.

However, It is very common to hear that maintaining a diet and exercise routine is very difficult.. Either because diet food is not that delicious or because you don't have time to exercise. But the real problem is not the taste of the food or the lack of time, but the system you are using is not working for you.

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How to choose the perfect system to build your habits?

It is understood by system the process you carry out to install a habit. Example: the time you exercise, the type of exercise you do and the place where you exercise.

What frequently happens is that the system is often copied from someone else who has already achieved the result you want.

But, understanding that your habits must be connected with your values, it is likely that this copied system will not fit in your life. This leads you to perceive the process as a tedious or complicated experience, which it will lead you to abandon it.

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High expectations prevent the construction of habits

To build habits that help you progress in any aspect of your life, you must focus on the system instead of the goals.

If you have focus on goals, any indication that you are not reaching it can leave you unmotivated and without the desire to continue taking action.

However, when you are focused on the process, you will move more smoothly and naturally towards the desired goal.

How to eliminate negative habits and build positive habits

If you want to eliminate a bad habit from your life, try incorporate more positive habits that replace it.

Example: If you want to reduce alcohol consumption, try to be more consistent in the intake of water instead of cutting the consumption of alcoholic beverages radically.

On the contrary, if you want to create a habit that impacts your life in a positive way, you must take into account 3 factors: repetition, patience and the 3 levels of habit building. Let's see one by one.

1. Repetition

To create a habit you need a system aligned to your values ​​that you repeat automatically. Remember that the sum of small actions is what generates big changes.

2. Patience

Big changes don't happen overnight. We live in a world in which more and more technologies and products that promote immediacy are emerging, but you must have Keep in mind that in order to build habits that help you achieve important goals in your life, it is important to be patient.

This has a lot to do with what you read a few lines back about focusing on the process and not on the results.

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3. The levels of change for building habits

Habits are built on the following 3 levels of change: identity, processes, and results.

First level: results

on this level the goal is associated with a result. These results can be: lose weight, publish a book, win a championship or pass an exam.

Second level: processes

This level is aboutthe routines you implement to achieve your goal. Example: physical activity, organization systems, etc.

Most of the habits you develop are associated with this level.

Third level: identity

This level is about changing the order of beliefs: your vision of the world, the image of yourself, what you think about yourself, how you define yourself. The habits that we have most deeply rooted are those that are directly related to our identity, therefore, if you want to change them, you will have to put more effort. This happens because to change those habits you will need to change your identity. And obviously, that's not an easy task.

This is the most important level of change, since your identity defines your behavior and vice versa.

How to build better habits

I leave you here some tips that will help you establish lasting habits that will impact your life in a positive way.

• Establish habits that you want to adopt taking into account your values.
• Define the parameters: how, where and when. This will help you plot a route.
• Join the new habits that you want to adapt to already established behaviors. Example: if you want to start meditating, propose to do it after brushing your teeth.
• Create a conducive environment to help you install the habit. Example: if you want to exercise in the morning, leave your sportswear ready in a place where you can see it when you get up. It also works when you want to break a habit. Example: stop eating sweets. For this, eliminate the sweets that are in your house and in this way you will be making the process difficult for yourself to access a sweet.
• Reward yourself when you perform a series of actions in favor of installing the new habit. This will help you stay motivated.
• Start small, with easy and practical actions. Taking 5 minutes to meditate is easier than half an hour.
• Make it attractive so that it provokes you to repeat it. If it bothers you to do your monthly financial balance, try turning it into a date: music, coffee and dessert.
• Keep track of your performance. This does not mean that you should measure how close you are to the goal, but rather what changes you perceive in the process. Example: if you want a slim body, do not measure the weight, focus on the changes that your body is reflecting.
• Make sure it's challenging enough to motivate you, but not so difficult that it leads to frustration.

To close…

Building good habits is a process that will help you grow and become your best version.

Remember that everything good takes time, therefore, patience will be one of your strongest allies on this path that you will begin to travel. If you are having a hard time installing a habit, it may be that you have deep-rooted limiting beliefs that prevent you from taking action.

For that, you can approach a professional who will help you transform those beliefs, to free yourself and build new habits that change your life for the better.