Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.
Building healthy habits and the actual ‘science’ behind habits is something that really fascinates me and I know what a big difference changing habits has made to my own life so its something I’ve done a lot of reading and research into – I wrote a blog post a while back explaining some more about habit building and a great tool to help you build new habits into your day called Habit Stacking – if you want to have a read, here’s the link: Habit Stacking Blog Post and in this blog post, I wanted to share a bit about another great tool that I use myself to help me with all areas of my life.
Habit Tracking
In essence, habit tracking is simply a way to measure whether or not you did a habit. It’s not a complicated process and you can simply use a calendar or create a chart where you mark off your daily activities as you complete them.
Habit tracking has lots of benefits and there is evidence that tracking your behaviours increases the likelihood of establishing and maintaining new habits – here’s some of the benefits:
1
Tracking your habits helps you visualise your progress
2
It acts as a daily reminder to act and complete your habit
3
It improves your motivation and boosts positive feelings
4
It helps you spot any trends such as specific days when you struggle to include your new habit and identify what changes or plans you need to work on for those times
5
It creates a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment.
How I use habit tracking
I use this technique regularly either to work on establishing a single new habit or to look at building new routines into my day.
I create a very simple chart in my journal which I use each day and literally list the habit or habits I want to work on and then at the end of each day, I cross off whether or not I’ve done the ‘habit’. I’m currently recovering from a serious knee and leg injury which put a stop to my running and exercise for several weeks and as part of my ongoing recovery, I set myself the goal of going out for a walk every day to start building my strength back up and to get some fresh air and exercise. As I work from home and had spent about 4 weeks stuck indoors due to the injury, establishing a new habit was needed as getting out for a walk each day wasn’t something that I normally did and I’d gotten into new home-based routines and patterns of behaviour.
By adding ‘daily walk’ to a habit tracker, it moved higher up my priority list and by looking at it daily, I recognised I needed to plan it properly into my diary each day.
I then added an extra layer of habit tracking by creating a chart to log my daily walks and signed up for a virtual monthly walking challenge so every day I would tick off when I’d gone for a walk and then add the distance to my monthly tally to reach my goal.
As you can see from above, I missed a couple of days and it’s really important how you deal with this – it certainly doesn’t mean I’ve failed in building a new habit – if I’d have given up after the first day I missed my walk, that would have been failing but instead thinking about what happened and asking myself if any changes need to happen, means that by day 13 of the month, I’ve completed my new habit 11 out of 13 days. Habits don’t appear overnight – they take time and effort and importantly, they take allowing yourself to fail – as long as you pick yourself back up again!
I’ve used (and still use!) habit tracking in so many areas of my life – not just linked to my weight loss or fitness goals – I’ve used them in terms of my business, my self-care, my relationships, my switch off time (a big one which is still a work in progress is not checking my phone or social media after 8pm) – some habits seemed to become automatic quite quickly and with minimal effort whereas others take a lot longer and still require prompts and active behaviour to do them so certainly don’t beat yourself up if after a week or two of practising your habits, they still aren’t automatic.
I love helping people discover the best ways to work on their mindsets and habits to help them reach their weight loss goals and if you would like to find out more about my 1-2-1 coaching programme or how I can help you, please do get in touch.
Email me or phone/message: 07834 442607
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I’d love to hear any thoughts or comments on this post and if there’s anything that really works for you to help keep you on track or how to keep the motivation going strong!
I’m reading this at 4am. I’m realising that I need to get myself a little calendar for 2023. I’ve got one to use for the rest of this year I want to get into a habit of meditation for at least 10 mins a day
(something I’ve been trying every now and again). This blog has given me a little push !!! Thank you xxx
what were you doing awake at 4am? Love the idea of a little calendar to keep on top of new habits!