Habits are hard to build, changing them will require a strong desire or why. Stephen Covey defines habits as the intersection of desire, knowledge, and skill. This is the main reason why changing your habits is hard work. You must work on transforming these three building blocks. The good news is that the sooner you start working on your desires, skills, and knowledge the faster you can build healthy habits.
Living healthy will become a habit when you know (knowledge) what to do, how (skill) to do it, and understanding why (desire) you want to do it. Habit building cannot take place if you do not have these three things in place. Building new habits is like building a house. A strong desire (why) is the foundation. Knowledge and knowing what to do are the walls. The roof is the skills needed to complete the house. All of these components are vital in making sure you build lasting habits. These qualities do not have to be present at the same time. When you build new habits, your knowledge and skill may be low, however, with a strong desire, you will persist. After working on the new habit for a while, your knowledge and skill will get better and you may not need tons of motivation (why) to do it anymore.
A Strong Desire To Build Habits.
One of the major hurdles of building habits is the lack of a strong desire or why. The road to building healthy habits will be filled with many challenges. One of the greatest and often overlooked fuel to resist the urge to quit is a strong why. A study found that people who had a deeper reason for losing weight managed to keep it off for the long term. People who did not identify a strong why lost weight and gained it back.
This study shows three important things about habits. Firstly, internal motivation is better than an external one. The people who lost weight and kept it off had a greater reason for losing weight than just “for” weight loss. Secondly, just wanting to lose weight is not enough, you need a deeper reason that resonates with your internal value system and that will keep you consistent. Thirdly, having a strong why will not only help you lose weight or start living healthy but will also help you build long-term habits
Desire Is The Starting Place To Building Healthy Habits.
Every healthy transformational story begins with a strong purpose or desire. Many people who give up on their new diet or weight loss program have not identified a strong why. The foundations of a strong habit is a clear and specific desire. If you want to build lasting healthy habits, you must answer the why-questions.
- Why do you want to lose weight?
- Why is losing weight really important for you?
- Why should healthy living be a priority in your life?
Find Your WHY!
These questions will help find a deeper reason for building healthy habits. What I have observed is that a crystal clear why produces lasting results. A weak why is based on external factors and fades away. If you want to lose weight because someone made a nasty comment, you will not last with your commitment. When you are trying to live healthily because it’s the ‘in’ thing then you will not build lasting habits. Learn to take care of the why-questions. This will make the what and how-questions easier to bear. Once your why is strong for healthy living than you will move heaven and earth to reach your goal. Building habits start with a strong why or desire!