How to generate new healthy habits?

Tips to move from intention to action in establishing healthy habits in your daily life.

Health is not only the good condition of the human body; in many aspects, it is also the behavior patterns and lifestyle behind that good condition. That is why, in order to feel good physically and emotionally it is key to learn to adopt healthy habits.

However, starting from scratch to integrate these routines into our daily lives can be quite a challenge. For that reason, in this article we will give you some practical advice so that you do not make it very hard up that project to go to the gym, start eating in a healthy way, give up the addiction to snuff, better manage the hours of sleep, etc..

7 tips to know how to generate new healthy habits

Keep these key ideas in mind if you are committed to adopting healthy habits and maintaining them in your life over the long term.

1. Balance your capabilities with the ambition of your habit.

If the routine you are considering transforming into a new habit is too similar to what you already do every day or what you already know you can do, it is possible that applying it to your daily life will not bring you anything, or even that you will throw in the towel for lack of motivation (since you will not be leaving your comfort zone).

On the other hand, if the goal you have set for yourself is too difficult and far beyond your capabilities, you will probably get frustrated and end up not only throwing in the towel end up not only throwing in the towel, but also giving up on making modifications to your plan to make it fit better with your talents and knowledge..

Therefore, it is important that you try to find a balance between what you know how to do (or what you are used to doing) and what is a huge challenge for you. To achieve this, you can make a SWOT panelthat is, a chart divided into four other squares in which you can write down in a brief and summarized way your Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats and Opportunities in relation to the goal you are aiming for. With this in mind, it will be easier to predict the level of difficulty you will face.

Just don't get obsessed with making it perfect; if you get close to a realistic and reasonable notion of the tension between your skills and your goal, that's enough. If you turn this first stage into (paradoxically) an almost impossible mission because of the degree of accuracy to which you aspire, you will not be able to move on to practice.

If your way of estimating what your healthy habit project will cost you turns out to be too unambitious or too complicated, you can always make corrections as you go along, but at least you will already have a backbone of the difficulty curve that you had estimated so that, based on this, you can make appropriate modifications.But at least you will already have a backbone of the difficulty curve that you had estimated and, based on this, you will be able to make the appropriate modifications.

2. Segment your new habits into short-term goals

To enhance your capacity for self-motivation, it is important not to stay in the simple abstract idea of the habit you want to embraceBe as concrete as possible. Remember that abstract goals are also goals with fuzzy boundaries, which can be modified "at convenience" and put you in your comfort zone without you realizing it.

To avoid this, make your goal concrete in a chain of specific sub-goals that provide you with sources of motivation in the very short term. That is, make sure that this new healthy routine is divided into hourly or daily goals, so that you always have the next one on your radar.

This will not only help you to motivate yourself (since you will know that in a very short time you can feel the satisfaction of having advanced towards your final goal); it will also help you catch mistakes on the fly and avoid procrastination..

Visualize your success

Visualization is a technique widely used in psychotherapy both as a self-motivation tool and to overcome fears and personal complexes.. It helps to focus on the goal to be achieved and to let go of the fears that could be paralyzing us or were tying us to a passive attitude that prevented us from breaking the routine.

To put it into practice, reserve several minutes to close your eyes and imagine in the most vivid way you can that situation to which you aspire to reach.

4. Schedule a series of reminders

Speaking of procrastination, it is important that you keep it at bay by setting several reminders and alarms.

Remember that the chances of you giving up on improving your life habits skyrocket if you are not able to foresee situations in which there is a high risk that you will forget to do the corresponding task.Once you have started skipping exercises or actions that make up that routine, it is easy that the following ones will also end in the same way.

So, create a detailed schedule and hang it up in a place where you can see it often, and every morning or evening set several alarms as reminders for the next few hours. as a reminder for the next few hours.

5. Set aside time to measure your progress and detect failures

Especially at the beginning, you need to pay close attention to the extent to which you are moving from wishful thinking to practice.If you are not managing to implement a routine as you would like, you can correct the situation in the first few days. Otherwise, when you realize that you are not reaching your goals, you may become discouraged and give up on transforming your habits altogether.

Thus, it is essential to detect as soon as possible the signs that we are not making adequate progress, so that changing some actions and routines that we are implementing does not cost us a great effort (especially considering that we start by proposing relatively simple sub-goals). In this way, we avoid problems accumulating.

If you are interested in enhancing your effectiveness in taking this step, always keep a daily diary of your progress in which you record what you are doing day by day and the next sub-goal to be achieved, so that it is easy to compare the two.

6. Share your achievements with others

If your healthy habit has to do with exercising, it is often positive to do it in the company of other peopleThe presence of people who accompany us in this process of physical and/or personal development is very motivating.

In addition, it's also good to keep your friends and family up to date on your progress. By doing this, you will contribute to them bringing up the subject often, congratulating you at key moments, and ultimately motivating you and acting as a reminder of your goals.

7. Secure the first 21 days

It is estimated that the average adult needs about 21 days to integrate a new habit into his or her identity.This is the way in which he or she conceives his or her "I", known as self-concept.

Therefore, when you are trying to adopt a new routine to your daily life, keep in mind this time reference to know at what point that chain of actions you want to get used to will begin to be part of your daily routine without you paying so much attention to it, since after that number of days, it will come out of you more automatically and spontaneously. This means that the habit will go from being a project to a consolidated reality.