Building a Habit

Building a habit, especially an exercise one, can be difficult for many of us. We can find 100 other ways to spend our time rather than work on improving our health. How many times have you talked yourself out of a workout? Last week, I found myself driving to the gym and literally nearly stopped the car to turn around and go home because "I didn't feel like it."

Personally, I'm coming back from an injury that sidelined me from my normal workout routine for several months. I worked hard prior to injury to work my way up to five-day-a-week workouts and conditioning my mind to understanding that workouts were a non-negotiable habit.

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Trying to re-establish a workout routine after being cleared from my physicians was like pulling my own teeth. Gritty, really unpleasant, and frankly, crazy. The attempt to start a new habit is so maddening because it's often ourselves vs. ourselves in a battle of good vs. evil.

One tip I've discovered recently is that of continual improvement. Instead of going from 0-to-60, we go from 0-to-10-to-20... and so on. A similar you may have heard of is kaizen, a process first started in Japanese manufacturing to create great momentum by implementing gradual changes. The continuous improvement still leads you in the right direction, without creating a huge disruption in existing flow.

In our fitness habit example, you can start by committing to 1 workout for the week. Carving out 45-60 minutes out of an entire week is much less daunting than carving out that much time per day. The momentum you feel from that 1 workout will likely move you to another workout, and you'll soon be up to 3 times per week... and t model hen more if desired. It's amazing how quickly the excuses seem to dissipate when you don't leap for the moon on the first attempt. 

What tips do you have for establishing a new habit?