This week’s positive word
on our A-Z Inspirational Journey …
H is for
HABITS
You may have opened this blog and thought, ‘habit’ – that’s not a very positive word.
But our habits can decide whether we are enjoying life in the best way that we possibly can.
Our daily routine is made up of lots of habits, good and bad … from having that first cup of coffee on a morning to reading before you go to bed at night. In between this time there will be 100’s of habits that you didn’t even realise existed.
90% is a huge chunk of our day, I wonder how much of your day is made up of good and bad habits?
In this week’s therapeutic creative writing exercise it’s time to look at the habits that are holding you back?
Let’s look at habits that could bring you a happier life.
Write down your day as you go along and establish whether these are good or bad habits, i.e: Is your morning coffee a good habit? Maybe not a great one, but walking the children to school or biking to work are great habits.
Once you’ve established all your habits (good and bad), tick which ones you would like to change. You may be happy with your morning coffee and have no intention of changing it, or you may have been wanting to reduce your coffee intake for a while. The best way to change a habit is to create a good one in its place.
Once you’ve done this, write down your ideal day that includes all the good habits you want to keep or start in your daily life. Look at this daily and start to integrate new good habits on step at a time.
So for example, instead of your morning coffee, how about a hot water with a slice of lemon? The benefits of starting your day this way can be seen here. It’s these little changes that will soon have you living the life you want and deserve.
It is hard to change a bad habit though, no-one said changing it would be easy, but it will be well worth it.
If you want to achieve something i.e. if you have goal in your head, generally we have the initial motivation to get there, if you want it bad enough, the motivation should be enough to get you started. Your aim is to keep going. There’s plenty of people who start a diet with good intentions and when it becomes too hard they turn to the easiest option; something that will give them instant gratification rather than long-term gain. Don’t worry you’re not alone. Read the rule below … 21 days isn’t long to change a habit, and 90 days is only 3 months in which you can completely change your lifestyle. You can do this. Believe in yourself.
However, not all habits are about eating healthily or keeping fit. It could be something in your life that needs to change. Do you do too much for another person? Be careful how you answer this question … You may do a lot for another person (a spouse, children, parents, boss, friends etc.) and you may be happy with this. You may get pleasure yourself from giving so much. However, if you answered, ‘Yes … Yes, I do far too much,’ then you need to look at restructuring a few things in your life.
Ask yourself: What am I doing that I don’t like? What can I do to change this? You may need a family meeting or something similar. You may find that those you have been giving too much to, didn’t realise how you were feeling, as they too have got into the ‘habit of life’.
It could be something as simple as, your spouse doing the cooking on a Saturday night because you do it every other night. Those who love you will support the habits you want to change. Change in certain habits could be small at the moment but you will soon see the changes in your life.
So go back to the list of habits you wrote down at the beginning of this blog post and look at those you want to change. As I always say ‘SMALL STEPS COUNT’, take one of those habits (you can take more if you’d like to, but changing just one habit is a step forward). Concentrate on changing this habit for 21 days. You can do this!
So go on … start making the changes now. Make your good habits fulfill your life. Be the best person you can be 🙂
Wishing you love, happiness and fulfilment always
Victoria xx
If you’d like help in surrounding yourself with positivity, you can download your very own FREE inspirational guide here.
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