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Hey Life Warriors!
Almost all of us know what we should do: eat healthy, be more active, train, sleep more and better… but for some reason, we can’t find the secret ingredient that allows us to achieve our goals. That secret ingredient is consistency . We need to have this consistency for a relatively long time to achieve these goals, or at least, to start seeing results. Today we are going to talk about how to build and maintain good habits that allow us to achieve our goals, whatever they may be. According to this article , establishing these habits can take between two weeks and nine months, depending on various factors. Let’s see what things we can do to achieve it!
The first thing we have to define is what our objectives are. As we explained in this post, there are different things that we must take into account when establishing them: they should be realistic, they should not involve too radical changes… if you missed it, consider taking a look at it, because no matter how good habits you want to build, If you fail to set the goal, you will never get there.😉
Once we know where we are going, we have to understand what behaviors will lead us to achieve our goal. Within these behaviors, there will be some more important and others less important. Let’s discard what is not going to have a great impact. For example, if my goal is to gain seven pounds of muscle, there are three non-negotiables: enough training volume, enough protein, and enough rest. Apart from these three, there are others that can help me, but they will have a lesser impact: supplements, type of routine, number of exercises for each muscle group… If my goal is to lose fat, I have three non-negotiable things: calorie deficit, enough protein and strength training, and other things that will help me, but will have less impact: walking 10,000 steps a day, cardio training, following a certain diet (keto, paleo, intermittent fasting…). We have to focus on the basics. Once the basics are in place, then we can add more things.
Now that we know where we are going and what the essential behaviors are, we have to find a way to maintain them. To do this, there are three important points to take into account:
- Complexity: the more complex the tasks I set for myself, the more difficult it will be for me to fit them into my daily life. Let’s say I want to achieve a calorie deficit. I can try to do this by simply decreasing the amounts of my usual foods, or I can try to change my diet up and down, introducing new dishes and foods that I don’t normally eat. In the first case, the chances of success are quite high. In the second, even if the first few days my motivation is through the roof, I will end up getting tired and returning to my old habits, since this will be the easiest for me.
2. Consistency – In order for me to start seeing results, I need to maintain my good habits for long enough. We usually encounter two problems here:
- We want to see results very quickly and we get demoralized when we don’t see them . To achieve long-term goals, we have to change that mentality from here and now. People who think in years have a great advantage over those who think in weeks or days; We overestimate what we can achieve in a month, but we underestimate what we can achieve in a year. We rely completely on motivation, but we forget about discipline. Motivation and discipline are like a match and a candle. Motivation is the match; It turns on and off very quickly. I can use the match to light the candle, but without the candle, we will run out of light very soon.
- We throw everything away as soon as we fail one day. This is a long distance race. Neither you nor anyone else is going to be able to do everything right every day. It’s simply not going to happen. Look for goals that cost you little work to maintain, and progress over time. If you intend to impose very severe calorie restrictions on yourself, you are more likely to throw in the towel on the weekend. On the other hand, if you set affordable goals, you can maintain them without a problem, even on the weekend, as you can see in this example
3. Commitment. Lastly, when it comes to building and maintaining good habits, it is key that we are committed to them. The changes we seek are not temporary, but permanent, so we need that commitment to not go back. For many of the people I work with, this is the point of greatest difficulty, and the way we overcome it is by socializing these changes. If committing to yourself isn’t enough, commit to other people. What we do is send the daily reports to a WhatsApp group where other people with the same goal encourage each other. This point is usually the favorite of people who follow our method. Find people with the same goal as you and work together, share your goals with family and friends… the more people who know, the better
In short, if you want to build and maintain good habits, keep the following in mind:
- Define your goals.
- Avoid overly complex changes; small changes make big differences.
- Be consistent; focus on the process and the results will come in time
- Commit to these changes. If you find it difficult, involve other people in your changes