Health & Wellbeing: Don’t give up on your well-being!

THE FIRST half of January is gone and most of the statistics from the well-being and fitness world shows us that around 50% of the new year resolutions or personal intentions for living a healthier and happier life fall flat by the end of the first month.

What is often said regarding the forming of habits is that creating a new habit takes 21 days. This is certainly a myth.
Studies show instead that for habits to become authentic behaviours, it takes for most of the people 66 days.

But it can take anything between 18 days up to 254 days.

Why does it take that long and how we can maintain our motivation during the installing process and beyond for achieving our health and well-being goals?

These are the two questions that I am going to answer here.

When it comes to an installed habit, we are dealing with an automatic behaviour.

According to a 2012 study published in the British Journal of General Practice, habits are “actions that are triggered automatically in response to contextual cues that have been associated with their performance.”

Let’s take as example the behaviour of driving a car. You jump into the driver seat and automatically put your belt on and turn on the engine, press the clutch if you drive a manual car and in the same time you think of what you are going to do after you drop your kids to school or how your first meeting in work is going to be.

Your brain is on automatic pilot when it comes to the driving behaviour.

But how long did it take for you to get there is the question that gives a clue about the time frame for our brain to upload a new behaviour.

It is a very personal time frame.

Becoming aware of the length of time that a new habit takes to be formed, is crucial for being successful with our intention to install a new habit that serve our health and well-being.

Now we can focus on practical steps that you can take in order you to get closer to your intention.
1. Make your new habit simple. As simple as your brain can’t say no to it when you want to do it.
A translation of this is: baby steps are the secret. And celebrate the journey as much as you want to celebrate the destination.
2. Write daily about what makes you happy and feeling good about the new habit. Your brain wires new pathways, mark them well for allowing your brain to recognise them easier when you have the tendency to get lost.
3. Find a way to keep yourself accountable. This can be to set a personal daily landmark like, no matter when you are doing the 30 mins exercising you won’t watch tv until you have that done. Or, to hire a coach who has the mission to hold yourself accountable.
4. Keep the momentum going. Find your way and focus on it daily. You can write them on sticky notes and set a memo on your phone.

And, at the end of the day, every single morning is a new chance to start again. As long as you face the right direction you are on a winning journey. Keep up the good work!