5 Proven Tips For Building Healthy Habits That Last In The Long Run

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Habits make up your everyday life, and it is safe to say that they predict your future. Whether you are living your dream life or feeling unhappy with yourself, it all depends on the healthy – or toxic – habits you’ve picked over time.

It is not what you do every once in a while that determines your outcome in life; it is what you do regularly.

Where you are right now in life is a result of the actions you’ve taken so far, but that doesn’t mean it has to be your future.

Your past does not determine your future.

Your life can be different if only you decide to change what you do – starting from now.

Are you ready to find out how to adopt healthy habits and the 5 secrets to be consistent with them in the long run? Then, let’s get started!

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Why Habits Are The Foundation To A Better Life

As mentioned in “Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes that Stick”, Dr. Wood concluded that 43% of daily behaviors are performed out of habits.

Considering that you spend half of your days doing what’s familiar to you, it’s clear that picking up the right habits is crucial in life.

Before diving into today’s tips, you must embrace this important truth:

Your habits define you, but you are not your habits.

Stop identifying yourself with your habits or else you’ll never let go of them.

Here are some examples:

• You’re not unhealthy ➔ You’ve just adopted the habit of watching Netflix over working out
• Don’t define yourself as a disorganized person ➔ Rather admit that you’ve never learned a strategy to be more organized
• You’re not lazy ➔ You’ve just chosen, so far, the habit of scrolling your social media over doing something to improve your life

Once you stop identifying with your current habits, it will be much easier to move on to adopting new, healthier ones.

You’re creating space for change by acknowledging that you can change – starting from the habits you perform.

Why You Failed At Sticking To Your Healthy Habits In The Past

“No matter how hard I try, I always fail at sticking to my good habits. How can I break the habit of being my old, inconsistent self?”

That is a question I’ve recently received in my DM’s – and, let me tell you: it really hit home!

The answer is partially connected to my previous point.

You can’t break the habit of being yourself, because that would mean that you have completely identified yourself with your habits. If you’ve done so, changing your habits feels harder for two reasons.

First, you need to build a new self-image; secondly, you need to find a system for your new habits.

Other than that, the most common reasons why people fail at sticking to new habits are:

• Underestimating how long it takes to form new habits (spoiler: it’s not 21 days like most believe)
• Lacking a plan and a structure to support the new habits
• Having a fixed mindset that doesn’t leave room for improvement
• Setting unrealistic expectations and going after overnight transformations
• Not designing a proper environment to support the new habits
• Choosing the wrong habits

No matter if you’ve failed in the past, every day you get a new chance.

So, are you ready to finally try a brand-new approach to habits? Let’s find out the 5 secrets to creating new, healthy habits you can actually be consistent with!

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5 Tips to Be Consistent With Your Healthy Habits

PICK THE RIGHT HABITS

As mentioned earlier, one of the reasons why you might have failed at sticking to a new habit is that you didn’t choose the right one.

The first secret to long-lasting habits is to choose the right habits for you.

Especially around some times of the year – like New Year, or right after summer -, there is a lot of pressure to adopt new habits.

Influenced by what everyone is doing, you might find yourself picking up on habits and setting goals that you’re not really interested in.

It’s time to cut out the noise and define what habits have the real power to change your life for the better.

How can you choose meaningful habits? Let’s see some tips!

1. Focus on quality, not quantity

Change doesn’t happen overnight.

If you’re at a point in life where you don’t like where you’re at or who you are, you might want to completely reinvent yourself.

Don’t get me wrong: you can change; it just can’t happen all at the same time!

So, if you want to adopt healthy habits and be consistent, you need to focus on one habit at a time.

You can change your life, one habit at a time.

2. Start with a keystone habit

Since you’re starting to change your life with one habit at a time, you need to be intentional with the habit you choose.

Ideally, you want to start by changing or adopting a keystone habit.

How can you pick your keystone habit? Simply answer this question:

“What’s the one thing that, if improved, can have a positive effect on all the remaining areas of my life?”

Here are some examples of keystone habits you could choose:

• Meditation ➔ This leads you to be more mindful when eating, more patient with your partner, and it helps you better control your emotions
• Reading ➔ This leads you to be more focused when tackling your tasks, more inspired to do creative work, and it allows you to reduce your screen time
• Exercising ➔ This leads you to opt for healthier food choices, be more active throughout the day, and it improves your sleep quality

3. Set habits from a place of self-love, not self-hate

How many times have you decided to start a diet only because you didn’t like your body?

How often did you work out only as a way to punish your body, rather than to feel good within your skin?

The reason why you decide to adopt new habits matters.

You can’t expect to be consistent with your healthy habits if they come from a place of self-hate.

Your mind will only perceive change as a form of punishment or restriction that, over time, will build resentment against the habit itself.

So, start with loving yourself and let the habits you choose be a reflection of the love you nurture for yourself.

MASTER THE ART OF SHOWING UP

The hardest part is getting started – isn’t it?

Changing behavior ain’t easy – at all. But, it feels even harder when there is a huge gap between where you are now and where you want to go.

You might dread the thought of spending 1 hour at the gym if, until yesterday, the only exercise you did was walking from the couch to the kitchen.

Or, you might find yourself coming up with excuses to convince yourself out of writing your novel at the thought of having to write 1,000 words per day.

Remember this: slow progress is still progress.

So, instead of expecting to change your life overnight, why don’t you first master the art of showing up?

That might look like:

• Doing 10 push up after waking up, if your goal is to get in shape
• Writing one paragraph per day, if your goal is publishing your first book
• Meditating for 1 minute before breakfast, if your goal is to be more mindful and intentional throughout the day
• Reading one page at night, if your goal is to read 24 books this year
• Replacing your mid-morning snack with a portion of fruit, if your goal is to eat healthier

Start small and build your way up. That’s the secret to consistency.

Additionally, there are 2 more tricks to help you be more consistent with your healthy habits. Let’s see them together!

1. Have small rewards when you hit certain milestones

You need to celebrate your achievements, no matter how small they are.

One trick that will keep you going with your new habits is to set some milestones and have a rewarding system for when you reach them.

For example, you could reward yourself by:

• Getting a new workout set whenever you increase your weight-lifting resistance
• Grabbing a latte from your favorite café when you manage to go for a walk every day for a week
• Buying a new book when you finish writing three chapters of your novel

2. Focus on the action, not your emotions

Oftentimes, we believe that action follows emotions.

In reality, it’s the other way around: what you do determines how you feel.

Have you ever pushed yourself to go to the gym even when you didn’t feel like it, only to feel so good about yourself afterward?

Or, have you ever gone out with your friends even if you thought of bailing on them, only to return home thinking you’ve just lived one of your best nights out?

What about when you feel sluggish and unmotivated, then you go out for a 20-minute walk and come back with a fresh and more positive mindset and attitude?

Please don’t take this to an extreme level – or it will be toxic and unhealthy – but, sometimes, you have to force yourself to do what you don’t feel like doing.

Why? Because you know that doing it will make you feel good in the long run. The future gratification exceeds the initial discomfort of you pushing yourself to do the thing.

TRIGGER YOURSELF

I couldn’t help but mention the leader in the industry of habits, James Clear – author of the bestselling book “Atomic Habits”.

In his book, Clear mentions the 4 hacks to be consistent with any good habits. You must make your new habit:

1. Obvious
2. Attractive
3. Easy
4. Satisfying

How does it work?

For example, let’s say your goal is to read more this year.

1. You can make it obvious by placing a book on your nightstand, so that’s the first and last thing you see every day
2. To make reading more attractive, you can do it while sipping on a warm beverage (like coffee in the morning and tea at night)
3. You can turn reading into an easy habit by starting small and setting the goal of reading as little as three pages per day
4. Finally, you could make it satisfying by rewarding yourself with 5 minutes on social media every time you stick to your reading habit

Additionally, you can use habit stacking to your advantage.

Based on the example above, you could read in the morning right after brewing a fresh cup of coffee, and at night after brushing your teeth.

IDENTIFY YOURSELF

While your habits don’t define who you are, your personality influences how you approach your daily tasks.

Before building any new habits, consider taking “The 4 Tendencies Quiz”, ideated by Gretchen Rubin.

Based on the tendency to meet inner and external expectations, all individuals belong to one of these four categories:

• Obliger
• Upholder
• Rebel
• Questionnaire

If you want to learn more about it, I cannot recommend enough taking the test and checking out Gretchen Rubin’s blog.

Q: “What’s your tendency?” I am an obliger – so I need quite a lot of accountability! 😉

DEVELOP A BOUNCE-BACK PLAN

Finally, the last tip to adopting positive habits you can be consistent with is to create a bounce-back plan.

Let’s be honest here: things won’t always run smoothly.

That’s why you need a bounce-back strategy…

In this way, you will worry less about doing everything perfectly the first time – especially if you suffer from an all-or-nothing mindset.

By taking into account that some days you might “fail”, you allow yourself to actually be more consistent and persistent in the long run!

Let’s say that you can’t stick to your workout today because you have less time than usual. The easiest option would be not to work out at all…But, what if you had a workout plan for when you’re short on time?

If you can’t read a whole chapter, why not read a few pages?

Or, let’s say you forgot to meditate before leaving the house today. Can you just take a couple of deep, mindful breaths as you sit at your desk?

You won’t have failed unless you say to yourself you did.

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Should we do a quick recap? Here are the 5 secrets to building healthy habits you can be consistent with:

1. Pick meaningful habits
2. Master the habit of showing up
3. Trigger yourself
4. Identify yourself
5. Create a bounce-back plan

Q: “What’s the ONE habit you’re looking forward to adopting this year?” – let me know it in a comment! 🙂

Until next time,

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