Start Early in the Day

Your willpower tends to be highest at the beginning of the day, so harness that energy and use it to your advantage. A great example is crockpot cooking. Your desire be healthy can help you to toss ingredients into a crockpot in the morning. That way, you’re not dealing with cooking when you’re tired after a long day at work. My mom was true believer in the “art” of crockpot cooking. Fortunately I took her cue and I use it to make my life easier.

Make Habits Convenient

If something’s difficult or complicated to do, it’s even less enjoyable when you’re doing it over and over. Make sure that whatever habits you’re trying to establish are simple and relatively easy. If there’s any complexity (like needing a packed gym bag), schedule it into your routine so it’s easy to get it done.

Have Fun!

If you’re doing something you hate, you’re not going to magically fall in love with it because you’re doing it over and over. Some people say you should “change what you think is fun” but I don’t think that’s realistic. Instead, find things that you actually enjoy doing, and establish those as your habits!

Use Action Triggers

“I should take a quick walk now!”

Triggers are things that automatically lead to something else happening. A trigger you might have now would be something like “finish eating dinner, rinse plate in the sink and put in dishwasher”. So the rinsing of the plate was triggered by finishing a meal. Similarly, see how you can tie new habits to other actions. For example: every lunchtime, take a 10 minute stroll when you’ve finished eating. After a while, every time you eat lunch, you’ll think to yourself: “I should take a quick walk now!”

Using these types of techniques to establish habits can be the difference between success and failure.

Note: As you look to establish even more Healthy Habits, take a look at my Kick Sugar For Good program that I am offering to help you do just that. KICK that toxic sugar out of your life!

Written By Callie Bradford MS, Speaker, Holistic Health and Wellness Coach. Author of Apples, Carrots and Kale, Oh My: A Beginners Guide to Juicing.

Adapted by We RUN Tings.