Sticking to Healthy Habits

I’m a firm believer that your habits determine your future. 

If you drink lots of water and eat well, you’ll be healthy.

If you prioritize sleep and exercise, you’ll be energetic. 

If you work hard and invest in your education, you’ll have a successful career. 

With this belief in mind, at the beginning of 2024 I decided to set a new goal for myself. After a few months of mood swings, I resolved to become a more emotionally resilient person and made a list of daily habits that I thought would help me get there. 

Here’s what I came up with: 

• Workout

• Walk Wally

• Stretch

• Meditate

• “I am” Affirmations 

• Read min. 10 pages

All jazzed about my list, I headed into the new year with plenty of momentum and motivation – crushing most of the items on a daily basis. But as is often the case when people start a new fitness plan or diet, my successes gradually started to wane. 

I tried everything to keep up with my new regime. I had my coach holding me accountable with weekly check-ins. I tried James Clear’s Atomic Habits concept, choosing the smallest possible unit of the habit as a daily minimum bar (e.g., if you’re committed to working out everyday, choose a goal you can hit with 100% accuracy – say, 10 push-ups – and stick to that). 

But with consistently disappointing results, I decided I needed a new tactic to hold me accountable. I was beginning to realize that an important piece of the puzzle was finding a way to stick to my habits. 

As I’ve written about previously, I’m a big fan of journaling. I also happen to be exceptionally anal about leaving 0 unread emails in my inbox and removing any red “update” badges on my apps – my brain just can’t handle the unaddressed notifications.

Using these traits to my advantage, I began doing something that would soon give a makeover to my accountability technique: instead of simply committing to a mental list of items, every night before bed I would write out my “to do” list in my journal with an empty box beside each line waiting for my “check” when I completed it the next day. 

The results have been a pleasant surprise.   This little “reward” for my brain, though simple, has given a complete facelift to my mental hygiene.

Every single day since I started doing this over two months ago, I’ve been checking boxes left, right, and center. And being consistent for this long has ground the habits into my daily routine, meaning it no longer takes an effort to remember or prioritize them.  

If you’re having trouble sticking to a commitment, I highly recommend this trick. It’s incredible how big of a difference the little things can make, and finding the “how” to keep you engaged is so worth it. After all, the little things just might determine where you end up 10 years from now.

Your future self will thank you.