As you might have noticed: 2022 is already a month old. Many of you gave those new year’s resolutions another shot. Doing more of the good stuff like eating healthy, regular meditation, and working out. And less of the bad stuff, like smoking, binging social media for hours on end, and negative self-talk (even though this voice keeps telling me that’s exactly what I deserve...).
You’re struggling despite your best intentions? Then the following statement might help you to figure out why:
If you want more of one thing, then chances are, you need to make room for it by having less of another thing. The same is true the other way round. If you want less of something, you need to think about what you’ll replace it with.
A friend of mine casually dropped this pearl of wisdom recently. When I thought about it, it felt like my experiences with habit building suddenly made a whole lot more sense. Both the fails and the wins. For example, let’s say you want to reduce the amount of time you’re vegging out on your couch watching trash. Not that there’s anything wrong with that (at least in moderation). Simply avoiding the couch might be hard if it’s your go-to activity when feeling bored, and you have nothing to replace it with. Bonus tip: Find suitable replacements beforehand. It’s not fair to expect your brain to come up with some when it’s fried at the end of an exhausting day.
Trying to work out a couple of days a week? Some other activities will have to fall by the wayside. It’ll be easier once you identified stuff you can sacrifice to make time for your fitness goals. Sort of like offerings to the god of gains.
So I’ll leave you with these questions:
- Which activities are you willing to reduce to make room for better habits?
- What will you replace your bad habits with?
