We will only start to build habits once we are intentional about it. Habits like many important things in our life need to be acted upon. They will not spring upon us like a robber at night. Good habits grow through planning, intention, and proper care. Bad habits grow through neglect. It is the same as your garden. If you take proper care of it, the grass and flowers will grow beautifully. However, if you neglect it the weeds will run rampant. Routines are needed to help you build habits.
How Routines Will Help You Build Habits.
A routine is described as a sequence of actions regularly followed. The Cambridge dictionary defines routine as, “a usual or fixed way of doing things”. When you start to build habits, it feels like an uphill battle. Changing the old ways of doing things is never easy. Once you established a routine early in the process it will help you build habits faster. 40% of our daily actions are habits rather than choices. Knowing or unknowingly we have repeated a couple of routines until they become a habit.
Changing your routines is the fastest way to change your habits. Charles Duhhig, in the book The Power Of Habit, speaks about the habit loop. The habit loop is made up of three things: the cue, routine, and reward. Firstly, there is a cue, a trigger that tells our brain to go into automatic mode. Secondly, there is a routine which may be mental or emotional or physical. Finally, the reward which helps your brain figure out if this loop is worth remembering.
Routines That Will Help You Build Habits.
The three components in the habit loop are essential. However, when you start to build habits routines will be key. It will take time for you to learn what is your best cue or reward. Focus most of your energy on developing routines. The Three routines that have helped me build habits:
Weekly Planning Routine.
Weeks are not created to the same. Planning a month ahead may too far and every day too close to the action. Weekly planning has helped me to look at my work and family diary to fit in exercise. There are some weeks I can exercise six days a week. There are some weeks I only exercise three days. The weekly planning routine has helped me to exercise at least three times a week. On my normal weeks, I get five quality exercise days. Once I let go of this weekly planning routine I find that I stop making exercise a priority. Exercise is now a habit and a lifestyle in my life because I made it a priority through weekly planning every Sunday evening.
Evening Routine.
When I started to eat healthily and exercise I was a night owl. I used to sleep after midnight and wake up just in time to bath and go to work. My body was not getting enough sleep and I felt tired during the day. I started a new evening routine of preparing my healthy meals, talking out my gym clothes, and sleeping early the night before. These three evening routines helped to make eating healthy and exercise a habit. When I wake up in the morning, I had one battle to fight. That battle was to kick my blankets and go out and run. The evening and morning are probably the only two times you have total control over. Use your evening wisely to develop habits that are important to you.
Morning Routine.
My evening routine made my morning routine easier. One thing I realized early on in building my running habit was that follow-through is key. You can put your gym or running gear out the night before, however, you still need to lace up and go run. When you start practicing the routine of waking up, lacing up and running for a couple of weeks it becomes your habit. The days where I ran in the morning were the best. I made better choices and felt energized throughout the day.
You may not able to work out in the morning or prefer working out later. That is okay, just make it a habit and put it on your schedule. Once you repeat a routine a couple of times (at times after 1000s tries) it will become automatic. You will get to a point where not exercising feels abnormal. Exercising will be your new normal way of living.
You do not need to break yourself trying to build habits. All you need to do is to identify a handful of routines that you can repeat daily. The best routines that worked and helped me lose 13 kilograms in three months was weekly planning, preparing the night before, and following through with the plans in the morning. It will take time to build new habits. Do not be in a hurry to get results. Focus on the process and the results will follow!