How To Build New Habits

How to Build New Habits

Would you like to learn how to build new habits? 

Have you always dreamed of doing some things as part of your daily activities? 

If you have plans of building a new habit, but you don’t know how to go about it, read on to learn more. 

How To Build New Habits

How To Build New Habits

Good Habits are things we do almost every day of our lives. 

They help you foster progress and development. 

They also keep us in check of our personality. 

However, as good as they sound,  good habits often feel almost impossible to build.

That is why there are some steps to take in building them.

Steps On How To Build  New Habits

How To Start New Habits That Actually Stick

1. Make A Clear Decision On What You Want; it Will Help You To Build A New Habit

It is one thing to admire people who build and practice good habits.

It is another thing to wish for it and be willing to work towards building such good habits. 

Building a new habit involves starting something you have not done in your life before and doing it consistently.

However, building that new habit would be quite difficult if you have no idea what habits you want to build.

This is why it is the first most important step to building a new habit.

This step will also help you prepare for what’s ahead.

Overall,  being decisive about the habit you want to build and knowing why you’re building the new habit will motivate you to follow through the processes involved consistently regardless of how hard it might be.

2. Start It Simple, It Will Help You Go A Long Way 

Now and then, the thought of building a new habit comes to us. 

When this thought comes, we want to go out of our way to do it outstandingly. 

Most times, we end up starting in a big way.  

Building a new habit is like starting a new career.

You start little by little. 

You don’t just jump from A to K, rather you start from A, gradually move to B, C, and so on. 

For instance, instead of doing 10minutes of meditation daily as a beginner, you can do two minutes. 

The essence is to make you can sustain the zeal throughout the time frame. 

Starting simple helps you to imbibe the habit easily. 

It allows you to go through the process one after the other and finally bring you to the stage when the habit totally becomes part of you. 

Above all, to build a new habit, make sure to start simple.

It will help you go a long way in building the new habit.

3. Be Consistent

When building a new habit, it is advisable to consistently do it on the first, second, and third days. 

It helps the habit to stick

Research has it that an everyday habit sticks easily than the one done twice or once a week. 

This way, the habit becomes part of your daily routine, and over time your body and brain adapt to the new habits.

Consequently, making it become part of your subconscious.

Consistency is a key factor for imbibing any new habit into your life.

strategies for developing habits

4. Make Changes to Your Routine One Small Step at a Time

Progress is something that everyone cherishes. 

However, it is not something you rush.

It requires a lot of patience to build a habit. 

For instance, if you began meditation two days ago and could sustain attention for two minutes each day, you shouldn’t rush to increase the time to 10 minutes on the third day. 

The increase should be little by little.

The reason is that your body needs to adjust to the little extra time coming in. 

To do this, you will have to add a minute or two.

If it is more than that, you will be bored and tired.

You may even drift off while meditating. 

Therefore while increasing your task for a new habit, do it gradually to avoid feeling overwhelmed.

If the new habit becomes too tedious for you to handle, you may easily get discouraged and give up.

Thereby making it difficult for you to build a new habit.

5. Do Not Make Any Exception For The New Habit

We as humans love to make exceptions for a lot of things, especially when building a new habit. 

For instance, if you want to do water therapy and have decided to always drink two glasses of water early in the morning on an empty stomach, keep to it. 

Saturdays and Sundays, which happen to be weekends, you will be busy with weekend chores.

Therefore, you may decide to skip the routine on weekends. 

Instead of skipping it, you can actually wake up early, take your two glasses of water before you begin your chores.

This way,  you can avoid skipping your routine and make the new habit stick a lot faster. 

Tricks to Make New Habits Stick

6. Make It A 30 Days Challenge; It will Help The New Habit To Stick Faster And Easily

Research has it that building a new habit may take up to 21 days (3weeks) of consistent practice. 

That consistent practice also refers to doing it at a particular time and period. 

Therefore when creating a calendar for your new habit, create a  30-days (one-month) calendar. 

Follow it consistently and be intentional about it. 

When you miss a day, do not panic or feel frustrated.

Instead, make sure you meet up the next day. 

When you feel frustrated, you may be discouraged to continue practicing the new habit, which will be the end of building a new habit. 

So, to effectively build a new habit, set a target for yourself and practice the habit consistently to meet the target.

7. Tell A friend About The New Habit You Are Building; It Helps You To Be Accountable 

Like every other thing involved in personal development, building a new habit requires you to have someone you can talk to about it. 

You don’t necessarily have to tell them everything involved in the new habit. 

You could tell them you are building a habit, how you felt the first day, how far you have gone, how you currently feel about it. 

Knowing that someone else knows about your progress spurs you to carry out the task daily because you feel like you have to give them feedback. 

Overall, it helps you to be accountable.

This sense of accountability can be a great source of motivation to practice the new habit daily.

More so, your friends can be a great source of encouragement when you are overwhelmed and you feel like giving up.

For instance, if you skip a day of practice, they would encourage and admonish you not to skip another day. 

Telling a friend who cares about your growth and development goes a long way in helping you build a new habit. 

What Does It Really Take to Build a New Habit

8. Measure/Document Your Progress

To help you build your new habit faster, it is advisable to document your progress and processes. 

You can start by writing down the first time you did the task, how you felt.

Were you excited to start it?

Also, when you finally did it for the first time, was it boring or tiring?

Was it better on the second and third day?

More so, are you noticing any real changes in your life with the new habit you’re building?

Writing about it, perhaps in a diary, will help you to monitor your progress.

Just Like telling a friend who cares, writing down your day-to-day experience helps you keep track of what you’re doing and encourages you to push forward to achieve your goals. 

9. Allow Yourself To Be Imperfect, It Quickens Your Progress To Building New Habits

Most people do not like to accept their imperfection because they feel like people will use it against them or because it is something they are insecure about, which may actually lead them to fail. 

We forget that perfection comes from imperfection. 

How will you learn how to play a musical instrument, guitar, for instance, if you don’t accept that you don’t know how to play it? 

You have to, first of all, accept your imperfection and begin to work towards changing it. 

Imperfections are to be used as weapons for change, not weapons for self-delusion. 

Therefore to help yourself in building new habits, learn to accept your imperfection. 

7 Steps to Developing a New Habit

10. Create An Affirmation; it Will Strengthen You To Build A New Habit

Affirmation is usually a few words of encouragement you say daily at a particular time to encourage yourself and cleanse your mind of negative thoughts. 

It comes in handy, especially when you feel overwhelmed emotionally or mentally.

You recite it daily or at intervals of some hours to help you remain strong. 

It also comes in handy in most other aspects of personal development and business because it helps you fight self-doubt and fear of failure

Overall, saying some words of affirmation to yourself before you kick off your task for the new habit can help you keep a positive mindset and stay motivated throughout the whole process. 

11. Imagine Yourself Doing It 

Imagination is a great tool to implore when creating a new habit. 

It helps you feel as if you are already where you want to be, even on the first day of carrying out the task. 

It psyches your brain into cooperating with you and forming the habit with you because it will naturally make your brain feel like you have attained the height. 

Therefore to build a new habit, imagine yourself behaving as if you already imbibed the new habit. 

It helps to quicken the process, thereby bringing your imagination into reality. 

How to Form a New Habit

12. When You Fail, Try Again, It Will Help You To Build A New Habit 

Most persons fail to understand that failure is just a temporary stop, not a destination. 

Most people assume that when they fail, they can not rise again.

Consequently making them feel incapable of doing anything successfully. 

Building a new habit is not easy.

You don’t expect perfection to come on the first day. 

So, when you try and fail, try again.

Most popular successful people didn’t become successful after trying once.

Some even tried a whole lot of 25 times, and they finally made it. 

You are not different from them; always remember that. 

Building a new habit requires you to fail and try again until you get it right. 

13. Repeat It Until It Goes Into Your Subconscious Mind 

The brain is not smart without the help of the owner. 

It showcases itself following what is put into it. 

It becomes creative if you input creativity into it. 

Therefore when it comes to building a new habit, you should repeat that habit until your brain allows it to sink into the subconscious part of the mind. 

That makes it imbibe the act and remind you about it even when you may forget it. 

It makes your journey of building a new habit a fast one.

Building good habits (and ditching bad ones)

14. Get Rid of Temptation, It Will Help You Go Far In Building A New Habit 

It may seem religious and almost funny, but it happens. 

If, for instance, you are building a habit of meditating daily, it is advisable to wake up when you have time time to yourself to it. 

Also, if you use meditative music from your phone, it is advisable to put your phone in silence, not the vibration. 

It will help curb the temptation of pausing your meditation to see who is texting as early as 4 a.m. 

When you get rid of temptation and try not to focus your attention on things that do not matter, it will give you the strength to carry on with the task and do it fine. 

Also, it will boost you in your journey of building a new habit. 

15. Reward Your Little Efforts; It Motivates You To Build a New Habit 

A reward system is a way of saying thank you to yourself for doing some little things well.

It comes in handy, especially when you are going through some processes of personal development. 

In building a new habit, you need to reward yourself any time you carry out the task. 

It inspires you not just to do more but to do better. 

It gives you hope that someday, this whole work will pay off. 

Also, looking out for the rewards reminds you of what you stand to gain daily when you carry out your task. 

It is a trick that works well in helping you build a new habit. 

How to build good habits – and actually make them stick

16. Be Patient With And Kind To Yourself

When you attend a personal development lecture and decide to work on yourself, do not forget that you need the kind of patience you’d use on a 3-year-old who is learning new things.

Don’t beat yourself up for forgetting to do your task. 

Also, don’t dislike yourself for doing the task wrongly. 

Rather than doing that, encourage yourself to try again. 

More so, you can set a reminder always to remind you to do so. 

Being hard on yourself will wear you out, lower your zeal for the new habit, and may even affect your self-esteem.

Rather than treating yourself harshly for drifting during a mediation session, you can try to reduce the number of minutes you meditate

There is no shame in going back a little to retrace your steps or start again. 

It strengthens you to do better and pushes you to build a new habit.  

Final Words on How To Build A New Habit

Good Habits To Start

Habits are said to account for at least forty percent of our behavior daily.

That is why we have to be careful of the kind of habit we learn, either consciously or unconsciously.

Building a new habit is an important tool for progress in all aspects of life. 

That is why it is important to build the good ones. 

To build a habit, you need to understand what it takes and decide about going through the process.  

Also, you need to do it daily and consistently to become conversant with it. 

Similarly, you should always plan for failure, but do not plan to fail.

It may seem funny, but understand that the chance of failing in forming a new habit is very high. 

Therefore, to conquer failure, you have to plan for your next line of action when you fail.

It will strengthen you to build the habit. 

Moreover, you should also remember to be patient and kind to yourself as you work towards building new habits.

Conclusively, understand that you need regular practice and serious faith in yourself to pull through.

Therefore believe in the process and trust yourself that you can always do anything. 

Cheers to your success.

Implement these steps and as you do, document your progress.

You can walk us through your journey to building a new habit by sharing your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

Stay Frosty!🥰

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How To Build New Habits