Micro habits and habit stacking || Blogtober #4

“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” ―John C. Maxwell



Hey, hi, hello and welcome back to my little corner of the internet, a place where we drink comical amounts of coffee and discuss how we can make our lives just a bit better!

Also... WELCOME TO BLOGTOBER DAY 4!
If you just popped by, Blogtober is a series that I started on my blog, where I post daily content for the WHOLE month of October.




This time I wanted to talk about something that I find really important, and that is your daily habits.
Everyone, and their grandma's are talking about habits now.
It's the buzzword of 2020.
But, somehow, that is okay. 

Habits are the most important thing in your day to day life. 
Why? 
They are the building blocks of your daily routine, which includes your work, personal life and goal setting and achieving.

First of all, let's get this out in the clear. You already have habits. 
The question is if the habits are intentional or unintentional.
Most of us have a lot of unintentional habits. 
The way you stir your coffee in the morning. 
How you put your shoes on.
The way that you sit down. Or, how you stretch just one arm in sleep. 

And most of those are fine.
But sometimes we have unintentional habits that are hindering our success.
Here's an exercise for you- take a piece of paper, or take a place in your planner, and write down what kind of a person you want to be. Be as detailed as you want and can. Now take a good look at that and write what kind of a person you are right now. Are you working out as much as your ideal self? Are you waking up at the same time as that version of you? 
Now you made your unintentional habits intentional.
Now we can start to change them and modify them. 


When you want to adopt or change a habit, it might be daunting.
Suddenly, you have to start waking up at 5 AM while the previous day that was your bed time. 
You really want to run 5k in the morning, but at the same time you get winded by tying your shoelace.
If you have this absolutistic mindset, everything is daunting. 
So the main topic of this post is exactly that- making habits into bite sized short bursts multiple times throughout the day!
Here is the whole shebang explained in followable steps:

1. Write down a list
Make a list of all the habits that you want to adopt or that you want to change up and how you want to change. Use the previous exercise as a guideline for your habits. Next to every habit, write your why. 
Why do you want to work out? Why do you want to wake up at 5? Why do you want to start writing? 
If you have a very powerful "why", it will make it so much easier than to just go and grind it out until you get sick and tired and just give up on the whole habit changing.




2. Divide the habit (micro habits)
Let's say you want to start working out every day for 30 minutes. Can you find 2 chunks of 15 minutes in your daily schedule? I think you can.
Or, you want to plan out your whole month in advance. Divide that into manageable short bursts, and that way, the habit won't be so scary. 
(Almost) everything that you want to start doing on a daily basis can be split in two or even 3 bursts. You're still getting the work in, you're creating a habit, it's just easier to swallow.




3. Linking habits (habit stacking)
You want to start drinking more water. At the same time, you check your phone a lot. Link those two habits. Okay, this may not be a great example, but honestly every person is an individual. 
For me it's like this. I link my coffee making with drinking water. Or planner check-up with phone check-up. I do my yoga in the morning by getting up to go to the bathroom first. 
When you link habits, it's harder to really forget them. This tip works especially well for morning or evening routines. If the routine has a flow, it's much easier to remember everything that you want to do.
The more you do this linking exercise, the more habits you will link together until you have a 12 hour string that works like a well-oiled machine! 




4. Don't beat yourself up
There are enough judgmental people out there who can make your life hell. (I'm exaggerating, of course.) But the point is, don't help them in making yourself miserable. 
Why would you spend time talking shit about yourself to yourself when you could really... Not? 
When I was a kid, my mom told me that if I don't have something smart or kind to say that I should stay quiet. And I honestly mean that, if you don't have anything nice, just stay silent with yourself. I know it's easier said than done, but believe me- I've been there. With practice, you will be able to silence yourself.
So, even if you try 5 times and fail, try the 6th time and see what happens without making yourself black and blue! There is always someone who is looking up to you, and you are not made to be perfect. Everybody is a work in progress, so just don't give up and I promise you will see results! 




There it is guys, my 3 simple tips for habits and how to make them easier! Did you like this post? 
Which posts do you like better? And what habits will you change/adopt? 

If you have any questions or suggestions you can find me on my socials! 

here or here

Thank you for your attention! 

k e e p         g r o w i n g

-omega- 

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