Getting through a one-time task can certainly be difficult, but few things are as challenging as adopting a long-term habit. If there’s something you know you need to do differently — more sleep, more exercise, a daily productivity goal at work — then you should make a plan and take it on. Here are five important things to think about when you’re trying to make a permanent change to your routine:
Only Start One Habit at A Time
Changing a lot of things at once seems like an efficient way to improve your life, but it just makes each new habit harder to monitor and harder to stick with. If you have too many goals, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with schedules and things to remember. Just work on one goal at a time. When you’ve successfully picked up a new habit, you can move on to the next one.
Have a Specific Plan
When you’re trying to add something new to your routine, it helps to assign yourself very specific actions to take, so you can think about it as little as possible. After all, the goal of starting a new habit is to eventually do it automatically. So, instead of telling yourself “I will exercise 4 times a week,” make a plan of which specific exercises you’re going to do, and when.
Do It For Three Weeks
21 days is considered the standard amount of time to keep up a new habit before it successfully becomes ingrained. Even if you want to keep a habit for years, just tell yourself you only need to do it for three weeks. If you can stick to your plan for that long, the rest should be easy.
If You Slip Up, Start Over
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you miss a day. Instead of giving up or letting your efforts slip even further, just get started again the next day. Even if you’re not perfect — and who is? — any attempt you make to continue on after you mess up will be worth a lot more than doing nothing at all.
Have Someone Else Hold You Accountable
Tell a friend. Post something to Twitter. Start a website. Do something that makes your goal public and gets the people around you to hold you accountable by reminding you to do it or asking how it’s going. When you have someone to answer to if you don’t keep up with your plan, you’ll be a lot more likely to do it. And when you follow through and succeed, you’ll have someone to tell about it.
Are you trying to make a change in your routine, or have you made one lately? What works for you? Tell us about it in the comments.
Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.
Photo Credit – sunshinecity
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