Habits, whether you normally make ‘em or break ‘em, habits are a really important part of our day, every day.
The UK’s current lockdown has given many of us time to reflect on our healthy and unhealthy habits. And lots of us have been using the break from our usual routines as an opportunity to try and make some new healthy habits. That’s why it was the topic of weeks’ ‘Me-vember’ session a series of wellbeing sessions we’re running internally at NKD through the month of November.
Whether you want to add some meditation to your morning, or you’re working on being more present with your loved ones, Sam Ellis, NKD associate, took us through some simple tips to start building some new healthy habits into our day.
Why habits?
Habits are important because our brains love automation
It’s reported that 45% of the activities we do every day are habits. That’s a lot… from the moment we wake, those automated, habitual activities start to kick in, turn off alarm, wash face, brush teeth, flick kettle on, (scroll Instagram!)…
Now imagine we fill our day with more of these brain friendly automations, but we make them healthy habits. ‘Those goals we might have to run a 5k or become a calm person, become much more achievable if we make a habit of a nightly jog or accompanying our first glass of water of the day with 5 minutes of ‘Headspace’.
Sam shared a quote with us, which really resonated with me:
“The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our habits. With the same habits, you’ll end up with the same results but with better habits, anything is possible.”
How to make those habits stick
OK – Sounds good right!? But how do we make our new habits stick?
Well, to begin with – you need more than just a goal. Goals are great – there’s no doubting that. They’re a great tool to help you build your vision, but there are limits as goals are binary and inflexible, they also need systems in order to be successful.
During Sam’s session she told us that in order for a habit to be successful, our goals need a vision.
Meaning that before you think about what you’ll do, first you have to think about who you will become. Your goal might be to run a 5k, but to make that stick – you need to first have your vision, for example…
I will become a fit person (this is the vision) and I will run a 5 K (goal) I’ll do this by going on daily jogs – which might start as brisk walks! (habit)
We went through a handy habit hack to make our habits successful: TURN
TRIGGER: a trigger so obvious that you can’t miss it!
URGE: something to make the habit super attractive
REACT: make the habit too easy to fail
NICE: make the habit nice – now!
I hope this quick run-down of the session helps you when you’re planning your new healthy habit! Sam Ellis covered a lot of content which I haven’t been able to include in this short blog – if you’d like to speak Sam about Habits or wellbeing in general – you can find our more here: wellbeingmattersnow.com
Check out last week’s blog here. If you want to carry on the conversation about employee wellbeing hit the connect button below!