Stop Sabotaging Your Goals with this new Mindset on Habit Change

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Abstract

’s Saturday, cheat day! So you stay in at home, you order pizza, go to the convenience store to get a Butterfinger, watch movies, and just pig out. On Sunday you feel horrible, because you pigged out the day before, and you decide to relax and eat soup and have some ice cream before bed.</p><p id="161a">When you try to wake up at 5am on Monday, you might actually make it out of bed. You might make it to the gym. You might get 350 words out. You might skip your social media today. You’re exhausted.</p><p id="bb03">So on Tuesday, you sleep in. You have a better day at work. You’re well rested. Everything is back to normal, and all of the little changes to your morning have been undone.</p><h2 id="e894">How do we break the cycle?</h2><p id="7a72">Simon Sinek might tell you that you need a compelling reason WHY you’re doing the things you’re doing, and he’d be right. It is necessary to make changes that are direct solutions to a problem you have, not just because some influencer with a six pack said it was a good thing to do.</p><p id="b74e">Tom Bilyeu might tell you to embrace your dark side, l

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earn to love the pain and push through. This is helpful, but on a smaller scale. You need to learn to love the pain of working out, because it’s making you better. You don’t need to deprive yourself of nutrients, sleep, and recovery time, for the sake of an arbitrary morning routine.</p><p id="6b06">I’d say, pick the one habit that will affect the greatest positive change in your well being, and start there. Research has shown it takes anywhere between 18 days to as much as 254 days to form a new habit, and it takes 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. You might need to just start waking up at 5am every day for 2 months to start to form that pattern.</p><p id="da37">That might seem like a long time commitment, especially right now in the face of 2 week dieting programs and supplements and every quick fix we could want being marketed to us. However, what is 66 days in the grand scheme of the rest of your life? How much will these 66 days of focused effort change you for the better? That’s where your why comes in, and that’s the reason you choose to push through.</p></article></body>

Stop Sabotaging Your Goals with this new Mindset on Habit Change

It’s really hard to follow through in doing the things we set out to do. It’s very hard to wake up at 5am every day. It’s very hard to go to the gym or go on a run just for exercise. It’s hard to write 5,000 words every week starting with a blank page.

What stops us from doing the things we set out to do? I think of it like Newton’s 3rd law.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So you woke up at 5am, ran 5 miles, wrote 500 words, made 5 social media posts, and now it’s 10am and you are absolutely spent, just as you’re starting your work day.

Maybe you do this 5 days in a row. Now it’s Saturday, cheat day! So you stay in at home, you order pizza, go to the convenience store to get a Butterfinger, watch movies, and just pig out. On Sunday you feel horrible, because you pigged out the day before, and you decide to relax and eat soup and have some ice cream before bed.

When you try to wake up at 5am on Monday, you might actually make it out of bed. You might make it to the gym. You might get 350 words out. You might skip your social media today. You’re exhausted.

So on Tuesday, you sleep in. You have a better day at work. You’re well rested. Everything is back to normal, and all of the little changes to your morning have been undone.

How do we break the cycle?

Simon Sinek might tell you that you need a compelling reason WHY you’re doing the things you’re doing, and he’d be right. It is necessary to make changes that are direct solutions to a problem you have, not just because some influencer with a six pack said it was a good thing to do.

Tom Bilyeu might tell you to embrace your dark side, learn to love the pain and push through. This is helpful, but on a smaller scale. You need to learn to love the pain of working out, because it’s making you better. You don’t need to deprive yourself of nutrients, sleep, and recovery time, for the sake of an arbitrary morning routine.

I’d say, pick the one habit that will affect the greatest positive change in your well being, and start there. Research has shown it takes anywhere between 18 days to as much as 254 days to form a new habit, and it takes 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. You might need to just start waking up at 5am every day for 2 months to start to form that pattern.

That might seem like a long time commitment, especially right now in the face of 2 week dieting programs and supplements and every quick fix we could want being marketed to us. However, what is 66 days in the grand scheme of the rest of your life? How much will these 66 days of focused effort change you for the better? That’s where your why comes in, and that’s the reason you choose to push through.