Three Steps to Creating Successful Habits

Often when we decide to make a change such as a New Years resolution, we decide to make several changes at once. Something like, “this year I’m gonna diet and exercise.”

When we try to implement one change at a time we have an 80% chance of success. But if we try to change two habits at once our chance to succeed goes down to 35%, and at three or more we have less than a 5% chance to succeed.

STEP ONE – Decide on a single habit to change.

In the case of changing our diet and exercise, we will be more successful if we start one habit first, take the time to get that habit established, and then start the second habit later.

When we make changes in our habits and routine we create stress for the brain. If we create too much stress we default to the emotional portion.

So we need to lower the overall stress on the nervous system in order to put the problem-solving and inhibition portion of the brain back in charge.

One of the ways we can do this is to create safety by making habits easy enough for us to be successful, and use that success to ease our way into bigger changes.

STEP TWO – The habit must be controllable, and measurable with a yes or no answer.

Now, we have to be able to actually control the habit, and it has to be stated in a yes or no format.

For example, my habit cannot be to “lose weight today.” This is because I cannot actually control “losing weight”, and I cannot answer that phrase with a “yes or no” answer.

Instead I have to pick a habit that contributes to weight loss. Maybe I have two muffins everyday for breakfast, and my goal is to stop having muffins for breakfast.

Each day my habit can be answered by asking myself, “Did I have muffins for breakfast, yes or no?”

Now, our brains are programmed to succeed, how else would we survive the wild without claws, fur or sharp teeth?

Inhibiting certain behaviors drain the brain, giving us less fuel to complete goals or reach high expectations. Leaving you to feel overwhelmed or ashamed. To prevent this dilemma we suggest using a different strategy.

So, lets say after a few days you look back at the muffin habit and find you were not able to avoid muffins for breakfast two out of three days.  What does that mean, it simply means that we are asking for too much change right now. Lets create safety by reducing the habit.

STEP THREE – is cut the habit in half until you find success.

Instead of saying “no muffins for breakfast” lets re-phrase the habit and say “just one muffin for breakfast.”  That’s right we are asking you to make your goals crazy easy.

Here’s a little story about how I used this technique with glowing results. Wanting to run everyday was one of my habits, and I kept saying I was going to do it and every time something came up that prevented me from even getting started.

So every time I did not meet my goal I cut the habit in half.  That’s right, I did not berate myself for not doing the habit. I just objectively said that habit is too big I should make it smaller.

So I did. Only run 10 min a day? Nope. Didn’t happen. Run 5 min a day uh, uh. How about put my feet on my treadmill everyday. BINGO I began running.

Somedays I was too busy to run my whole time or at all but I kept the habit with standing on the treadmill to remind me that it was an important goal worth doing.

In order to establish a successful habit we apply the three steps.

STEP ONE – decide on a single habit at a time.

STEP TWO – it must be controllable, and measurable with a yes or no answer.

STEP THREE – reduce the habit until you have consistent results.

Try this technique over the next few days

Pick one thing you’ve struggled to do or complete then systematically cut the habit in half until it’s crazy simple. Good luck and have a great year.

Taiso Fitness and Nutrition

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