We all have habits in our life that we would like to change. Maybe you want to quit soda or smoking, exercise more, stop overspending, cut back on sugar, etc.. If I were to make a list of all the habits I would like to change along with all the habits I would like to adopt I would probably come up with at least 30. I know this because I’ve made this list before. In the past I’ve operated from the all or nothing attitude. Quit cold turkey, jump into a new routine ASAP, and attempt to change everything at once. Sometimes this worked for me, but often it just left me feeling stressed out, rigid, and guilty as I struggled to adopt new habits and let go of the old. So now I follow a much softer path to making changes, I call it the baby step method.
For the next few blogs I’m going to discuss different aspects of the baby step method and how you can use it to make healthy changes in your life. Part 1 focuses on how to ease into new habits and how to slowly break old ones. To start instead of focusing on all your bad habits at once, pick only one. What is one habit that you are ready to let go of or alter? For instance if you want to stop smoking you are welcome to quit cold turkey, but if that feels too extreme for you right now focus on altering this habit. So instead of smoking a pack a day cut back to a half a pack. And commit to do this for 30 days. At the end of 30 days your brain and body have physically adapted to that change. Now you are ready to cut back even more for another 30 days, and so on. This is a way for your mind and body to ease into change and make it much less painful, and much more doable. And by 3-4 months you are free from that old habit.
If you are looking to start adopting some new healthy habits into your life pick only one to focus on for the time being. If you would like to start meditating every day commit to doing it for 30 days. And don’t attempt to sit for 30 minutes if you’ve never meditated before. Instead start with just 5 minutes a day for 30 days. At the end of the 30 days increase it to 10 minutes and do that for the next month. Eventually you work up to a time that’s comfortable for you and it has become apart of your daily routine.
What I suggest is that you focus on one habit that you want to let go of or alter and one habit that you would like to adopt and commit to it for 30 days. This keeps it simple and keeps you out of overwhelm. When you set yourself up to make too many changes at once you set yourself up to fail. It’s just too much on your brain to attempt to process all these changes at one time. When you are braking habits or adopting new ones your brain is literally rewiring itself. Habits form what are called neural pathways in the brain and it takes time and consistency to change these pathways. Attempt to do too much at once and you’ll short circuit (not literally, but it will feel like that trust me).
Here’s a good example from my own life: Recently I’ve developed a bad habit of staying up way too late during the week surfing the internet. Considering I get up really early (like 5 am early) these late nights are really starting to take there toll on my body and energy. And it’s not like I have an important reason for being online. I am usually just browsing facebook and pinterest just to waste time. But it always seems to suck me in, and the 5-6 hours of sleep that I’ve been getting just are not cutting it anymore. So I’ve decided that I need a shut down time. Now ideally I would shut down then computer by 9, get ready for bed, meditate, read, and be asleep by 10 so that I am getting a good 7 hours of sleep. But I can tell you right now that’s not going to happen. Since I’ve been staying up till 11 during the week, sometimes later, shutting everything down at 9 seems too extreme for me. So for the first 30 days of altering this habit I am going to shut the computer down by 10 instead. This I can do. And after the 30 days is up I’ll aim for 9:45, and so on. Then by the fall I should be in a whole new routine of getting to bed earlier and getting my 7 hours of beauty sleep.
Now in addition to changing a bad habit I also want to adopt a new one. I’ve been meditating every morning for about 2 years now and I know that it would be good for me to start meditating at night too, but I have been so resistant to the idea. Mostly because I stay on the computer for so long that by the time I’m ready to go to bed I’m simply too tired to meditate. But since I am focused on altering that habit now it would be a good time for me to adopt this new one. So for the next 30 days the computer will get shut down by 10 and then I will sit and meditate for 5 minutes. Simple, easy, and very doable.
As you can see this is a very simple change in my routine, but it will make a huge difference in my life. Not only will my body be more rested, but my mind will be calmer giving me a more peaceful nights sleep. Now there are lots of other habits I would like to change as well. But I know from my past that when I attempt to change too much I end up changing nothing at all. So for the next 30 days I am just sticking to this one.
The key that really makes this process work is the 30 day commitment. Science has proven that it takes 21 days to adopt a new habit or break an old one. Meaning that it takes 21 days for your brain to rewire itself. Some teachers will argue that it really takes 40 days, so I decided to split the difference and say 30. Why, because 30 is easy to stick to. Measuring your progress month by month makes it simple. And the simpler you can make this process the easier it is to make these changes.
Next week I will talk about more aspects to the baby step method, but for now just start with this. Pick one habit that you want to break and one habit that you would like to adopt. Then come up with a plan for the next 30 days on how you are going to start to make that change. And if you need a little motivation just think of how good you are going to feel at the end of 30 days when you’ve started to make these changes!
If you feel inspired to, please share what habits you’ll be changing in the comments below.