An alternative guide to (re)building good habits

I feel like we all know the generic answers to how to build a good habit: start small, write it down, have some one keep you accountable, yada yada yada. But you know how when you read these supposed guides and you just nod along and it never induces you to make actual changes in your life?

Well, I've decided to write this "alternative guide" partly for you and partly for myself. I think I went through a really good phase of a few months last year where I stuck to the habits that I wanted to build. But then I slacked off a bit in the past month or so, and I feel like it's time to rebuild these habits!

This guide is going to take a kind of introspective/retrospective look at how I managed to keep my habits, and it's mostly going to be about how to develop a right mindset because, let's be real, it's all about the battle of the mind.

1. Convince yourself that these are good habits

Pretty self-explanatory, but I guess it's something that we don't think about enough! I think many of us try to build habits because we feel like they're are things that we should do, not because they are things that are good for us. As a result, that puts onto our shoulders the weight of obligation, and the weight of obligation usually doesn't get us very far.

Maybe at one point you felt like you should exercise 30 minutes a day because that's what all those health experts recommend. How unexciting.

But think about how exercising just 30 minutes a day can have so many benefits to you personally, like better sleep quality, better mental health, a sense of motivation, and later on a sense of accomplishment...

Point is: don't just do things because you feel like you have to. Do things because you want to.

2. Convince yourself that there isn't a shortcut/substitute

We fail to stick to habits a lot of the times because we make excuses.

Thinking back to when I was able to keep my habits, I've managed to stretch before bed every single night precisely because I realized there was no shortcut to becoming flexible. For years, I just had the fantasy in the back of my head that I would magically become flexible. But we all know that's not how the human body works. There's no secret to becoming flexible. There's no shortcut.

Just like there is no substitute to getting consistently good sleep! We try to justify staying up late at night by saying "I can just wake up later the next day or take a long nap or something". I don't know about you but in my experience, this is the beginning of how my entire sleep schedule gets messed up.

I don't know if saying that there is no shortcut sounds harsh initially. But hey, it's the truth! And to be completely honest, I think coming to terms with the fact that there's no shortcut saved me from a lot of overthinking and from wasting energy trying to battle myself. It made it easier to just do it (whatever it is)!

3. Think about how you would be spending your time otherwise

I talk about screen time a lot because I feel like that it one of the biggest pitfalls of our generation haha. But bear with me as I make this comparison:

If you scroll on your phone for thirty minutes, your eyes get tired, your mind wanders to wherever place your phone take you, depending on whether you're lying on your bed you might get back pain, and you'll likely get so engrossed that it ends up being way more than 30 min.

But what if you just took 30 minutes of your phone-scrolling time to exercise instead? You're not really going to miss out much of the "latest news", you get your blood pumping, your get your mood up, and so on and so forth. (I don't think I need to list all of the benefits).

I know that when we have a spare moment, we just really don't want to do anything, and we feel like phone-scrolling is a way to turn of our brains and relax. (And I'm not saying don't use your phone at all; I think it has a place to be used in moderation). But in my experience, usually if I choose to exercise instead of phone-scrolling I feel much more energized afterwards.

4. Take time to appreciate how sticking to these habits makes you feel

And kind of extending from the previous point, I think it is very important to really pay attention to how these habits make you feel.

I think the challenge of doing most things is just the initial start! Kind of like how chemical reactions require an activation energy. Once you pass the initial threshold, the rest will sort itself out.

Let me paint you a picture: It's 9pm. I'm lying on my bed, watching YouTube videos, internally deliberating whether or not I should put down my iPad and just stretch before I go to sleep. If I didn't have an idea how good it feels to stretch, this internal debate would just keep on going on in my head as I unconsciously watch one recommended video after another until it's too late to stretch and then I'll just go like "whatever".

Conversely, if I remembered how much peace it gives me and how much better I sleep after stretching, and if I actively recalled the fact that every single time I decide to stretch I never regret it afterwards, that makes the initiation step so much easier! And then I can just make the conscious decision to put down my iPad and there's no reason to look back.

5. Build a system

I know that some people give the advice, start small, build one good habit at a time. But what I've come to realize is that a lot of good habits really complement each other. For example, stretching and going to bed at a consistent time.

If you decide to stretch at say 9pm everyday, it just naturally gets you relaxed and it becomes so much easier to sleep on time.

You don't necessarily have to successfully built one good habit before moving on to the next. Perhaps give a think about how different habits could complement one another.

6. Get ready to be transformed!

This is very important. I think the word "build" sort of conveys a meaning of "adding on" to something, and we often consider building good habits as attaching something additional to our pre-existing life.

This is not completely true, because transformation often requires sacrifice. So when we try to build good habits, we need to identify the things that hold us back, so that we can make room for even better things to come in.

If I normally spend 8 hours a day mindlessly scrolling (I don't lol), I'm not just going to magically conjure up 1 extra hour a day to dedicate towards a good habit like reading. I need to give up 1 of those 8 hours to make room for something better.

Building good habits is difficult when we try to cling on to our old way of living, and making the decision to change is undoubtedly hard. But I guess the good news is that when you make the conscious decision to pursue something good, the result is always better than if you were reluctant to let go of something bad.

And that concludes this alternative guide!! I really enjoyed writing this haha. If you feel like it, let me know what you think of this. I feel that this "alternative guide" thing has the potential to be made into a series:)