Stay Committed to Your Habits During Busy Times
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A habit is an action we do consistently. We do it every day, every week, or every two days. But we are not robots, so it's natural that some days we feel too busy to stick with our habits. As humans, unexpected things come up and force us to skip habits. This break in routine can cause a habit to lose its consistency.
Many people experience this when they can't stick with a habit because an urgent matter interrupts and
pushes them off track. Learning how to stop urgent actions from interfering with your habits can help you stay consistent. You'll become someone who knows how to build strong habits that last. To be consistent with a habit can transform your daily life and help you become more productive. The habits you follow consistently, such as a fitness routine, reading books, and eating healthy food, will shape your lifestyle. Consistency is crucial to stick with a habit.
Before we delve into tips on habit triggers that can help you avoid urgent actions stopping your habits, you need to understand what urgent actions are. I'll give you three examples—exercise, fast food, and reading—and show you how to react to them. These are just examples, but you can identify the urgent actions that prevent you from sticking to your habits by noticing what breaks the momentum of those habits.
Let's start with the example of how urgent actions can disrupt the habit of exercising in the morning. You wake up and want to go to the gym, but you have a headache and it's painful to move your head. This is an obstacle to your habit—how can you stick with it in these circumstances? It depends on the severity of your headache. If you can still go to the gym but can't run or do push-ups, put on your exercise clothes, go to the gym, walk slowly, and then come back to rest.
However, if the pain is too severe, simply put on your exercise clothes for five minutes and then take them off. Why do this when you're sick? Because skipping this small action could make it harder to stick with the habit once you feel better. If you don't put on your exercise clothes when you're unwell, it weakens your commitment to the habit in the long run.
When it comes to diet habits, interruptions can prevent you from losing the weight you want. Our minds crave instant gratification, like eating fast food, sugary, and sweet foods that harm our bodies daily. You're on a diet and only eat foods that help you lose weight. But you're far from a restaurant that serves that kind of food, or maybe you don't have time to cook. This disrupts your habit. However, you can still stay committed by satisfying both sides: you're hungry, but you don't want to eat fast food.
The solution is to compromise. Go to the fast-food restaurant, but only eat half of what you would have before starting your diet. This way, you remind yourself that you haven't completely broken your habit—you're still halfway committed.
Many things can give you reasons not to read today: you're tired, you need to sleep early, or you're in a bad mood. All these reasons may logically persuade you to skip reading. But just like with exercise and diet, you can still maintain your reading habit.
After a tough day filled with tasks, you return home late and remember your habit of reading ten pages. But how can you read during such a stressful time? This is where habit interruption occurs. To avoid it, read at least one page. By doing this, you show yourself that you didn't skip the habit entirely; you just did a smaller part of it. Tomorrow, you'll subconsciously remember that you read yesterday, no matter how few pages you managed.
To strengthen your habits, triggers can help you maintain consistency. Think of triggers as stimuli that prompt your habits to start. There are many different triggers for different habits. Here are a few examples:
To trigger yourself to go to the gym, place your exercise clothes near the first place you visit in the morning.
To stay committed to your diet, keep newspapers or articles that show the dangers of fast food visible, and ensure the food in your fridge is not fast food. If possible, tell your friends not to buy fast food when you're with them.
To trigger your reading habit more easily, leave your book open where you last stopped reading, and reread the last paragraph twice. This will make it easier for you to pick it up again the next day.
Prevention of habits is the main factor that causes good habits to stop. Using compromising tips to satisfy both sides can decrease the odds of quitting a habit. Add to these tips some triggers, and you will surprisingly stick with your habits forever .
M.Madour
I am an English teacher passionate about reading and sharing knowledge. I dedicate my time to exploring new websites and resources that can aid others in their personal and professional lives.