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At different points in life, making the right decisions can be difficult. Such challenges include making decisions regarding your mental and physical wellbeing. When it comes to matters surrounding the choices you make that will influence your mental and physical wellbeing, you might defer to old habits. These behaviors could harm how you manage and motivate yourself to succeed. These old habits might include adopting a poor diet, neglecting self-care, or isolating yourself when handling a stressful situation. While success depends on many factors, your habits influence a large part of this process.
The Importance of Self-Regulation
Self-regulation is central to human functioning. You can direct your behavior and control your impulses to meet specific standards, goals, and ideals. Self-regulation influences your short and long-term interests. Typically, these interests are in line with your deepest values. However, maintaining consistent self-regulation takes a fair amount of mental energy, and due to this, your brain might be looking for ways to conserve energy.
Habits, by contrast, require little energy. Most behaviors are often reduced to a routine because it reduces the brain’s decision-making process and reduces the number of actions you need to utilize to handle a task or challenge. Further, with the cognitive economy and performance efficiency of habits, the brain can conserve self-regulatory strength to focus on other important decisions.
Creating New Habits
Habits help shape who you are in the present and into the future. They are the key to wellness, influencing health, wellbeing, and quality of life. When you begin to change your habits for the better, you change your life for the better. Since habits are reactionary, meaning specific context cues them, they often happen without much awareness and in cycles that can also be known as a “habit loop.”
Sometimes you might participate in these loops because your brain is conditioned to recognize performing a routine to expect a reward. Studies show that habit loops encoded in the brain cannot become eradicated; however, they can become replaced with healthier habits. It takes having to create new routines. At START UP RECOVERY, we work with each individual to discover patterns and habits that they might be unaware of to help them correct the behaviors.
Becoming Self Aware
To begin to understand and recognize your habits and habit loops, you need to work on paying attention to your behaviors and responses in any given situation. With self-awareness, you can produce habits that work for you. Self-awareness helps you discover what kind of person you are when handling tasks and challenges. For instance, do you procrastinate, work too much, indulge in shopping, or eat when stressed? Are you more productive in the morning person or at night? Each of these contributes to how you govern your daily behaviors. Seeking them out can help you act to replace the habit or behavior with something more proactive in delivering the lifestyle you aspire.
Self-awareness also enables you to break down different aspects of your day and life to understand how you are moving forward to meet your goals and see them through. Are you taking too big of steps? Are you taking too small of steps?
Coming Up With Strategies
Once you begin to identify where the habit lies and how it makes you function, you can then work toward replacing it. New strategies emerge to enhance your chances for success when you notice what habits need replacement. Keeping a journal to track your progress and daily behaviors is a great way to observe what you are doing with your time.
Remember also to start small. Pick a new habit that is easy enough that you don't need the motivation to do it. Rather than starting with 50 pushups per day, start with five pushups per day. Rather than meditating for 10 minutes per day, start by meditating for one minute per day. Make it easy enough that you can get it done without motivation.
You should also remain connected with your support network and let them know your goals and how you intend to meet them. You cannot only express how you want to achieve your goals and have these people act as a sounding board, but it also promotes consistent accountability to keep you motivated toward strengthening your habits.
Finally, keeping a consistent schedule to incorporate sleep, exercise, nutrition, and self-care is essential to keeping your day's structure. The process is about strengthening and reinforcing your foundation, and it requires multiple strategies to see the change. Remember to remain consistent. Studies suggest that it can take up to 66 days to replace an old habit with a stronger one.
Change does not happen overnight. The change also does not happen without putting in the work. Your recovery, your success, and your overall wellbeing depend on healthy practices. At START UP RECOVERY, we will work with you to find the confidence to motivate you to make the changes you need to get the life you deserve. We believe in the power of a support system, these motivated and inspiring individuals that will aid you in your journey to overcome the challenges and habits that have been holding you back. When you continue to expand the number of good people around you, you develop and strengthen your potential for exceeding even your highest expectations. If you have reached a point in your life where you need help to get things energized and back on track, then START UP RECOVERY is the place for you. We focus not on treatment but transformation because we believe success does not happen without change. To learn more, call us today at (310) 773-3809.