Have you ever had a New Year’s resolution to lose weight? Of course, you have; we all have. Whether it be a large amount of weight or just a few pounds, missing components in our plans are generally what derail our resolution.
Missing components are:
No plan
No “want to”
No trigger
No habits created
The Plan is the research that goes into how the weight will be lost. What will be the diet? What will each day’s activity look like? What exercises will be involved? What times will each of these occur?
A person who has no “want to” is someone who says to themselves, “I should lose weight” or “I want to lose ‘x’ number of pounds.” A person who has the “want to” has a definitive mindset of “I am going to lose ‘x’ number of pounds” or “I am going to be down to ‘x’ by a certain date.” The “want to” is the establishment of a critical mental attitude that sets the mind on course.
A “trigger” is the key that unlocks the cause of why you are doing this. The trigger may be something like your doctor emphatically telling you to lose weight because of a serious health issue. Or it may be a decision you make regarding smoking that you need to quit because you don’t want to smoke around your children. Maybe they even said something about that habit.
The trigger is very important as it is something that sits on your shoulder to remind you.
Lastly, habits are the routines that will help you stay on course. If you haven’t taken the time to think about and develop these habits, a routine will fall apart. This includes eliminating bad habits. Habits are the automatic part of goal achievement and the part of the process that allows you to reach your goal.
We all have many habits already, such as getting up in the morning, tying
our shoes, bathroom activities, eating meals and many others. We also may have many bad habits. The secret is to recognize the positive habits and the negative habits, then “tweak” them to make our goal(s) achievable. If we need to create a new habit, we can “attach” it to an already established good habit. For example, after I brush my teeth in the morning, I will do five push-ups. (Remember, you have to “want to” do the push-ups.) You can see that we “attached” the push-ups to the act of brushing our teeth.
A habit can be created for anything as long as it comprises a trigger, a “want to” and a reward.
Another key consideration in habit formation is the size of the habit. Sometimes trying to create a very large habit is very frustrating and if you lose the “want to,” you’ve lost the habit. Start small, very small. Maybe instead of doing five push ups after brushing your teeth, do two. The important thing to remember is to get the habit started and into your routine. I guarantee that as time goes by, the number of push ups will increase.
Take time to dwell on what you want and how you want to approach it. The chart will help you put your thoughts in order. Your “want to” will keep you on track and your reward(s) will help you look forward to the next event.
If you want to achieve goals on a more consistent basis, make habit creation (or deletion) a process that guides your journey.
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