by Markus Fortune
“New Year, New Me”. A saying that has carried us through many New Year Resolutions, ambitions, goals, and intentions. A saying that is also contested. We do not necessarily become new people; we remain ourselves. Our mentality, perspective, and goals are the aspects within and about us that change. Putting those changes into action is an entirely different quest. A quest we need the appropriate tools, equipment, and information to complete. These changes can be summed up into habits. Being a part of who we are and what we do everyday, our habits have a lot of control over how we function in certain situations and the progress we are able to accomplish with regards to our goals.
Habits and goals go hand in hand. If I want to read more, but I watch 4 hours of television each night, I now have two conflicting aspects of my life that need to be separated into two completely different categories of time spent. James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits provides some great insight into building good habits and distancing ourselves from bad habits or at least distancing ourselves away from habits that hold us back, slowly deteriorate our health, interfere with our goals, and so much more. Good habits need to be made attractive and easy for us to access. For example: if I would like to read more, I should have the books in places that are easy for me to find and that are interesting to me. If my books are in a box in the attic and about car mechanics (a topic that is of no interest to me), that is going to make reading difficult to integrate as a good habit. I have personally started keeping 2 or 3 books within arms reach of anywhere I am sitting on my couch. I also have one book next to my bed so that I feel encouraged to read before bed.
Introducing new good habits into our lives can, in a way, make the phasing out of bad/less helpful habits an almost natural process. If I have a television in my bedroom, that makes reading in my bed very difficult. James Clear mentions in his book that there should be one space for one activity. That being said, I should choose where I want to read and designate that location as my reading space and also have a space where I only watch television. For example: I could remove the television from my bedroom and have that location designated as my reading space and only use my living room to watch television.
If I am wanting to watch less television, James Clear suggests that I make that habit unattractive or very hard to access. I could place the television remote in a hard to access location in my home or even set timers for myself so that I am only watching television for a set amount of time.
You are probably thinking “but Markus, this all sounds a lot easier said than done” and you would be correct! Habits can be difficult to introduce into our daily lives and difficult to remove from our daily routines. I would like to speak about Keystone Habits and how they can be a great first step to introducing new, healthier habits into your life.
Essentially, a Keystone Habit is a habit that you do absolutely every day. Some examples of Keystone Habits are: making your bed in the morning, completing a skin care routine in the evening, writing in a gratitude journal, and so much more. As a Self-Management Facilitator, I suggest starting with one Keystone Habit to help ease you into building your new routine. Keep in mind that, like James Clear mentions, your new Keystone Habit is as easy as possible for you to complete to help the habit stick. You can do this in several different ways: setting up your required materials the night before if you complete your skin care routine in the morning, making sure you have all of your cooking materials and equipment ready the night before if you want to start having a healthy breakfast before starting your day, just to mention a few. It is unlikely that the habit will feel like it will ease into your daily routine quickly; habits require more than just one day to feel natural everyday. If a week goes by and you are still struggling to integrate your Keystone Habit, try something a little different or easier for you. Reassess how you are approaching bringing this new habit into your life. No one is perfect and we all function in very different ways. A Keystone Habit I have integrated into my daily routine is giving my glasses a thorough cleaning before I leave the house. Sometimes I forget if I am in a rush. This only reminds me to ensure I am giving myself enough time to nourish the healthy habits I have in my life.
Remember that patience and kindness towards yourself goes a long way when trying to improve aspects of your life. We owe it to ourselves to take the time to ensure the habits that will work the best for us are given the time to flourish and smoothly integrate into our daily routines.
