Are you an ‘all or nothing’ kind of person?  Or do you start off SO gunho out of the gate but then peeter off?  Most of us try to make huge changes in our habits and usually those changes are not easy ones.  We go from not exercising at all to saying ‘I’m going to do a 2 hour workout at the gym 4x a week.’  These lofty goals are way too hard to maintain and then we feel defeated when we can’t keep them up.  Here are some tips on how to create big changes by starting small:

🔷 Start small

Starting small is the best way to ensure we make these habits a lifestyle, make them feel comfortable and attainable.  If drinking more water is a goal, you don’t need to start off drinking 20 glasses a day... start with something that pushes you past your current spot, but don’t make it so unattainable that you will be overwhelmed.  Starting with small changes and stacking them over time is the most effective way to make the changes stick.

🔷 Stack your habits

How you do this is up to you, but how ‘habit stacking’ works is you pick one habit you would like to change and do it for a period of time (a lot of people like to do 7 days) and then when that feels comfortable, add another habit... and so on. 

For example: 

Week 1:  Walk 10 minutes a day.

Week 2:  Walk 15 minutes a day.  Increase current water by 3 cups of per day.

Week 3:  Walk 20 minutes a day.  Increase current water by another 3 cups per day.  No snacking after dinner.

🔷 Be consistent

This is where the rubber meets the road.  Yes, sometimes something comes up and not achieving your daily habits might be a challenge, but try to get that ‘win’.  I remember when I was trying to make a habit of going to the gym 3x per week.  Sometimes I was super busy or honestly, just not into it.  But I told myself I had to go there and workout for 10 minutes.  If I wasn’t feeling it I gave myself to just go use the hydro-bed and go home... and you know what?  Most times I did continue on with my workout, but there were a few times I didn’t... and I still WON 😉

You got this!  We should look at how can we easily and enjoyably add some positive habits into our lives, and remove a few that aren’t serving us.  No one says this is 100% set in stone... a ‘lifestyle’ means ‘more than not’... they add up big time and make us feel so good about ourselves 💗

❓ Have you tried gradually adding healthy habits into your life?  Or are you more of an ‘all or nothing’ type of person? 👇

💗 Leta

~ Intentionally Bare