Creating a new habit.

The first month of 2011 has already passed us by! How has it gone for you?

If you wanted to change your diet have you succeeded with that and lost a few pounds? Have you been following a regular exercise programme? Have you managed your time more effectively? Or even changed your job?

Whatever changes you’ve wanted to make to your life it’s never easy to maintain the effort required to make it happen...

We are all creatures of habit and even with the best intentions often fall back into the old routine

“Old Habits Die Hard”

Often the biggest problem is that we aim to make drastic changes to our lives that simply are one step too far...

• 40-a-day smokers decide to quit all together
• Junk food addicts start to follow a 1000 calorie a day diet
• Those that haven’t exercised in years decide their going to run the marathon!

Drastic changes like these will usually fail because the new habits needed to deal with these changes are too extreme from the behaviour the person has previously been used to.

It then becomes such a negative experience that often people fall back into previous habits and in some cases are worse for the experience!

How do we stop this from happening and guarantee a positive experience?

The 7 steps to creating a new habit:

1. Write down your plan and keep it somewhere you will see it every day.

2. State specifically what your goal will be each day. E.G. “I will exercise for a minimum of 10 minutes today.”

3. State what your trigger will be. E.G. “I will exercise every morning after brushing my teeth.”

4. State who you will report to. E.G. “I will comment on the All About You Facebook page about my workout each day”

5. Post your goal publicly. – Use your social media for positive use.

6. Tell as many people as possible about your goal.

7. Celebrate your new habit at the end of 30 days.

It really is that simple!

The key is to not set your goals too big.

Creating a complete lifestyle change is going to require incredible determination and willpower and will increase your chances of failure.

If you haven’t exercised in years then face it... Training for the marathon is going to be pretty tough!!

But, doing 10 minutes of exercise per day is very do-able.

Set yourself up for success, not failure!

This exercise is about forming a new habit and taking small steps to achieve a big goal.

Plan an achievable goal, tell the world, do it and report on it EVERY DAY and you WILL succeed!

With one goal achieved you will then have the confidence to set bigger and better goals in the future with this simple method of establishing a new habit.

Ready to go with your first one?

Then head over to our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/All-About-You-Performance-Wellbeing/159779797381162?v=app_4949752878&ref=ts

And join us for a 10 minute training challenge!