New Guide: Making Habits, Well….Habitual.

Universally, it seems there’s a fleeting belief that adulthood is an effortless masterpiece. It’s why we all wanted to grow up so fast, right?

Masterpiece it may be, effortless it is not.

Although we don’t hold the secret to decluttering your to-do list effortlessly, we do have a couple ideas on how to become a “habit person,” which will at least take the edge off. The trick to habit building is committing to patterns that are useful, enriching and sustainable.
Of course if this were easy, we’d all be breezy CFO’s of fortune 500 companies by now.

To start you in the right direction, this is what our team has found to be most universally effective in building sustainable, healthy habits for those of us still perfecting the long-game.

Stack your habits.

Pairing something potentially challenging with something highly mundane feeds off the power of association. If…then, when I do….I will also…. Associating habits make routines, especially the parts of it that seem more challenging, much more manageable. It’s also a good reinforcement tool. Actions that are easily associated and done in congruence with each other eventually start to run together seamlessly. Breaking down big change into small manageable items makes them instantly more sustainable.

Consistency over perfection.

Give yourself some grace and allow yourself to NOT be perfect in your new routine. What will make or break the new habit will be your attention to consistency, not that it’s done perfectly each time. Ironically, we try new things all the time that we know we won’t be perfect at or that we highly anticipate going far from smoothly, and that’s okay-but a personal failure in the most routine parts of our lives is such a fear. It doesn’t have to be!

Own your habits.

Just because you don’t see your routine reflected in anyone else you know, doesn’t mean yours is inferior. Trends are cool, but they aren’t going to be ultimately sustainable to the life you’re trying to build because your life doesn’t submit to trend cycles.

Make Learning a Priority.

We’re meant to be evolving! Credit yourself with having the ability to change with your circumstances and allow yourself the opportunity to prove or disprove your current patterns. The most valuable habit you’ll ever create is the one where you trust yourself to change.

Eliminate limiting beliefs.

Assuming a future limitation or possible barrier keeps incredible ideas from becoming impactful. Assume you can, and pretty soon you’ll stop believing the lie that you can’t. New habits or routines don’t work if you automatically assume they won’t and you can’t.

There’s a lot of rhetoric out there about creating habits, and we won’t promise that our tactics will be the industry gold standard. What we can promise is that these tools can give you a starting point (which is more than half the battle). There’s no need to “fix” things in your life that are already working well, but it’s always healthy to be open to new things, Don’t forget that it’s a process, and to make it work for YOUR life and needs.

Good luck!