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How to Build New Habits in an Intentional Way
At this point in time, I’m certain you’ve all read about habits: what they are, why they’re important, and how to build new habits that are beneficial to you.
But, if you’re anything like most people, building healthy habits that stick might be a challenge. We intend to do our best, and to do what’s good for us, but any number of things gets in the way, and our intentions to start something new peter out within a week.
More than anything, building healthy habits and sticking to them is key if we want to live intentionally and in line with our values. By building new, healthy habits—individual to each of us—we’re able to craft a life that’s exactly what we want and need for ourselves (not for anyone else!).
If you’ve ever struggled with habits—either starting or maintaining them—the following information on how to build new habits is sure to make the process easier for you.
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Why build new habits in the first place?
When I think of this question, the answer for me is always making life better in some way. It’s either improving your physical or mental health, or it’s bringing some sort of enjoyment to your life.
For me, building new habits is almost always linked to bettering myself in some way. When I was a teenager, I wasn’t healthy—I was ignoring the needs of my body and mind. When I started going to therapy, I realized I needed to change this, and so started small, building habits one by one.
Now, over a decade later, any new habit I build now still contributes to my personal growth, but is also linked to enjoyment. Maybe I want to read every morning instead of looking at my phone, or maybe I want to start making art instead of playing video games. Whatever the reason, I’m making my life better in some small way.
Again, this will be different for everyone. But I firmly believe that building new habits should, in some way, make life better for you.
Know your “why”
Before deciding you want to start a new habit, it’s important to ask yourself why you want to start doing it.
Maybe it’s January first and you think, “I should take up running,” because you know people often start a new workout routine in January. Or maybe it’s Sunday evening and you think you should do yoga to bring in the new week—your partner does it, so you should too.
But this isn’t the way to start new habits! If you’re starting a new habit because you think you should, or because someone else wants you to, it’s not going to stick—not as easily. You have to want to build new habits for yourself, not for others (and not because someone else is doing it).
How to build new habits
Now: how to build new habits. Follow the steps below and you’ll be building new habits for your intentional life in no time.
1. Set an intention
Before anything else, what we’re really doing when we build new habits is setting an intention. We’ve decided that there’s a habit we want to build, and—remember, this is important—we want to build it for ourselves.
But we can’t stop there. Intention is all well and good, but if we only intend to start running, or reading every day, or writing in our journal each evening, that’s all we’ll end up doing: intending, or thinking about it.
Really, what we need to do next is take action.
2. Set small, easily achievable goals
So, how do we take action? We make a list.
Really! When we want to build new habits, we need to work at it in increments. Many of us won’t be able to decide we want to meditate for an hour every single morning and then stick to it for the next year. We need to build up to this.
How we do this is how we make anything more manageable: we start small. Let’s use the meditation example above. You wouldn’t start right out of the gate with an hour each morning—you’d (likely) meditate for ten minutes and then get distracted, thinking about everything you have to do that day. And before you know it, that intention of an hour of meditation is far in the rear view mirror.
So let’s say we decide to start meditating each morning for just ten minutes. Once we can do this for a little while—let’s say a week—then you can start adding time on. Twenty minutes next week. Thirty the next, continually adding time until you’re at an hour.
3. Create a schedule
As humans, we’re creatures of habit—if we intentionally do something at the same time every day, each day for a week or two, what we’re doing will go from something we have to think about to something we do automatically.
So, when you want to build new habits, one of the best things you can do for yourself is create a schedule and stick to it. To make it easier on yourself, choose a time of day for your habit that you know will work for you.
For example, if you know by evening you’ll be too tired to meditate (or make art, or whatever your habit is), then you’re less likely to do it (and less likely to achieve your goals). But if you know you have a pocket of time in the afternoon when you’re alert and motivated, that’s the perfect time to work in your new habit.
4. Combine your habits
When you’re trying to build new habits, one of the best things you can do for yourself is to bundle new habits with old.
This is sometimes called habit stacking, and is effective because we’re connecting the action of a habit that’s already fully engrained with one that’s just starting. By doing so, we’re making it easier for ourselves to engage in and maintain the new habit.
Let’s say you’ve already mastered meditating an hour each morning. Now you want to try building a new habit: writing in your journal. By linking the new habit (writing in your journal) to the old (meditating), you’re making it easier for yourself to build that new habit. If, each day, you commit to opening your journal directly after you meditate, this new habit will be anchored in place in no time.
5. Come back to it if you pause
Another thing you can do for yourself is commit to working toward building your new habit every day.
But inevitably, you’re going to have days where you don’t end up working toward the habit you’re building. For one reason or another, what you intended to do that day doesn’t happen; all of a sudden, you look at the clock—it’s nine at night and you haven’t worked toward your goal.This is okay! As long as you commit to starting again the next day, you’ll be able to keep yourself on track. After you miss one day, it’s easy enough to get back to it; but leave it two or three days, and it becomes easier not to do it.
6. Be kind to yourself
And finally, be kind to yourself. There will be days that you miss building your habit: you’ll be too busy, or too tired, or want to spend time with friends. Again, this is okay! As long as you keep coming back to it, and as long as you have compassion for yourself.
Building new habits isn’t easy. It takes work and dedication to get to a point when the action—whatever it is for you—becomes automatic.
So, please be kind to yourself through this process. Again, it’s not an easy thing to build a new habit, but it sure is worth it.
Which intentional habits are you going to start today? Comment below!
xoxo
Catherine
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Thank you for reading! There’s no new printable this week, but you can see all the printables I’ve made previously in my shop, Toad in the Attic.
Some more posts you may like:
How to Use Social Media Intentionally: Seven Ways You Can Reevaluate and Change How You Use Social Media
What are you taking with you? What are you leaving behind?
This bright, glittering thing: Notes on wonder and life, here and now
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