Create new and better habits. Give yourself a break // Life

At the end of last year I wrote these words in my 2014 wrap-up post...

I feel as though I have failed in many things, the things that I was so determined to succeed at, the biggest one being my weight. I'm so angry at myself for letting it get out of control again. For losing the determination and mindset that I worked so hard for in the first part of the year. It's been really easy to beat myself up about it and that only makes things worse.

These words only scratch the surface of what has been going through my mind since about October last year. If I'm completely honest, I've been on this downward spiral of negative self-talk. Every time I didn't get up exercise, every time I stuffed chocolate in my face, I felt like a failure. And that feeling made me want to sit on the lounge some more and eat another block of chocolate. 

It's a funny thing, the way the worse you feel about yourself the harder it is to make changes. When you have a little voice in the back of your head telling you that you've failed, it's very easy to listen and then think "Well what's the point of trying again, I'm just going to fail, why even bother?". I think there are a few of you who can relate to that sort of inner dialogue, no?

Over the last couple of weeks I've done a lot of thinking and soul-searching. I've thought really hard and talked to Dave about what it is that I've been feeling and how things got so off-track. One conclusion we came to is that I tend to go too hard too fast.

I'm one of those people who is really good at starting things, not so good at finishing them. I'm also incredibly impatient and want everything to happen fast and happen now! My approach to exercise and weight-loss and healthy eating is no exception. You'd think after 30-odd years on the planet I would have figured out a way to dealing with this, but no.

In all this thinking I've been doing a lot of reading. It's funny how things present themselves to you exactly when you need them. There have been two things recently that have helped me come to a bit of an Oprah A-Ha! moment and as a result have really started to shift my thinking.

The first has been reading through Glenda Bishop's Healthy Stories blog posts. She makes a lot of sense in her writing, and I've taken away more than a few helpful ideas. Last week I wrote my One Word blog post and she left what has turned out to be a perfectly timed comment. Glenda said...

...I do wonder if gaining control over a mindset for healthy living is the right way to look at it. Maybe you could instead go back to the definition of capture and choose #1 for this - to take by stratagem. I think this could be a better approach since you talk about the need for planning and organisation, which really is just a series of strategies that together will achieve an overall stratagem for what healthy living is for you. This way it's not so much about gaining control or exerting influence, but simply making a series of plans that you will tick off one by one.

Glenda's comment has been percolating in my brain all week. Funnily enough it came the day before a perfectly timed book arrived on my doorstep. You see, I won a book thanks to Raychael of Agent Mystery Case, and it turned up last Wednesday and exactly the right time. We were leaving to head over to my Mum's house (a drive that takes over an hour when we go via non-toll roads) and I devoured this book during the drive.

The book? Kelly Exeter's Your Best Year Yet. I've been a fan of Kelly's blog for a while now, and I've been wanting to get my hands on her book for some time. I read it from cover to cover during that trip, and I've read through it 2 more times since then, highlighting key passages with my trusty yellow highlighter, like the total nerd that I am.

The fourth chapter in Kelly's book is called A Different Way to Approach Bad Habits and it's my favourite one. In this chapter she says (I've just pulled out the key sentences that really stuck out to me here)...

"Anyone who's an expert on the topic of habits will tell you it's really, really hard to just get rid of a habit... Breaking bad habits is hard. It's much easier to make new and better habits... The beautiful thin about habits is once you create them, they're easy to maintain... So create new and better habits, and give yourself a break."

This idea of rather than focusing on and trying to stop bad habits I try to create new habits really struck a chord with me. It fits well with what Glenda said about making a series of plans, and it's helped me to start shifting my thinking and how I'll go about creating a healthier lifestyle for myself.

I've decided that rather than going all out and trying to make a complete overhaul of my lifestyle, I need to take small steps and create new habits. I've set myself one overall goal for the year in regards to my weight. I've identified the things that will help me to lose weight, and broken them down in to small steps. 

My overall weightloss goal for the year is to simply lose half a kilo a week, each week, until the end of the year. My first new habit to create for January is to drink more water. Drinking more water will not only be beneficial for my body health-wise, but it will also go towards helping me break the habit of drinking Coke Zero all the time. Instead of simply saying "I have to stop drinking Coke Zero", I'm focusing on getting in to the habit of drinking more water.

Yesterday I drank 7 cups of water and not a single glass of Coke Zero. The first day I haven't drunk Coke Zero since I was away in Perth in November.

My new habit to create for February is to walk more and aim for a minimum of 7000 steps a day. This will tie in to my goal of keeping on top of the housework as moving around the house cleaning and tidying is a great way to get my step count up. I've also set up silent alarms on my FitBit to remind me to get up from the computer and move around for 5-10 minutes on the days that I am working on the computer. When I get up I'll have a cup of water, put away a few toys, put on a load of washing, whatever small job needs to be done around the house.

I'm continuing to think about new habits that I can create, rather than bad habits I need to break, with the goal of the new habits replacing the bad, or helping me to avoid the bad habits. I've been thinking a lot about what the triggers behind certain bad habits are and things I can do instead when I those things happen. I read this article by James Clear that Kelly references in Your Best Year Yet and it's been helping me to focus on these small steps.

So that's my plan going forward in 2015, of how I plan to capture a healthier lifestyle. I'm putting small steps and strategies in place, creating tasks that I can tick off and creating new habits to replace the bad. I think 2015 is going to be a year of growth and learning. The title of this post is taken from Kelly's book, and it's my new mantra for 2015, to go along with my word.

Do you struggle to break bad habits? Is a healthier lifestyle on your list to work towards in 2015? What strategies and resources have you found or used that have helped you?

Find me here:

Facebook / Twitter / Bloglovin 
Subscribe by Email
Affordable Family Photography in Sydney...

Taking Stock {January 2015} // Life
Two {52 Week Project} // Photography // Life
One Word - 2015
One {52 Week Project} // Photography // Life
2014. The year that was... // Life
Waiting for Godot: Western Sydney Photography // Photography
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated// Life // Current Affairs