Five ways you can get back on track with your healthy habits
For me ‘healthy living’ means making life-long changes that make you feel your best. I’ve worked hard over the years to incorporate healthy habits like eating real home-cooked food, exercising and meditating into my daily life. But, sometimes events in life derail our best intentions and healthy habits go out the window! It often feels harder to re-establish a habit than it was to create it in the first place. And because life always includes periods of stress which we have to deal with, it’s good to have tools in place to help us get back on track.
Our recent house move including being in temporary accommodation for six weeks means it’s been very hard for me to stay on track with my healthy habits. Here are the things I’m implementing to help me get back on track in a hope they may help you either now or later to get yourself back on track too.
Stop beating yourself up - I hear it all the time, both from clients and from my own conscience: “I was doing so well now it’s all gone to waste”. Firstly, establishing and following a healthy habit whether it’s for 1 day or 100 days is never a waste of time. Secondly life happens and it sometimes throws us off course, but the key is not to overthink it. Take a little bit of time to re-set your compass and head back to the path you want to be on.
Write it down - when things get chaotic it often helps to write things down. Whether it’s the never-ending ‘to-do’ list or the healthy habits you want to bring back into your life. Seeing it there in black and white can help to focus the mind and bring about action.
Give yourself time - if your habits have got off track, chances are you’ve been through a stressful period. Be kind to yourself. Ensure that the period/event has fully passed and you’ve processed any emotions around it before you start trying to make changes. Don’t expect to be able to snap back overnight to all the same healthy habits you had before. Chances are you didn’t start all those habits at the same time originally so why should you be able to now. Focus on which habits are most important to you and incorporate them one at a time. Give yourself at least a week to ensure the habit has stuck again before you move on to incorporating the next one. This way you’re more likely to be successful in the long run even if it takes a little longer!
Put them in your diary – schedule habits like you would appointments to help you keep them.
Create a habit tracker - following on from point 2 it’s great to track how often you keep a habit once you reincorporate it. A habit tracker (a simple tick chart or use gold stars if you like) is a great way to track what you’ve achieved and can help you stay accountable to yourself.
I hope you find these tips helpful whether you're establishing healthy habits for the first time or after a little slip-up.