Healthy habit reboot: Mindset is key
You go on vacation, or get slammed with a big work project, or maybe you go down with the latest respiratory virus.
These are common disruptions to our routines. And with these disruptions, our healthy habits, such as making nutritious dinners, exercising or meditating, can go by the wayside. And sometimes they stay by the wayside, even after life returns to normal.
We tell ourselves that we’re just “off track,” which often feels like failing.
Case in point, I love to meditate. It helps me manage stress and live in the moment. But over the holidays, I didn’t meditate even once in four weeks! When my phone reminded me each day, I’d think, ‘oh, a meditation would be nice, but I don’t have time. I’ll do it later.’ Ha. Come bedtime, a little voice in my head would whisper, ‘you’ve failed at this.’
Fortunately, I’ve trained myself to tell that dumb little voice to zip it. And I can help you learn to do the same. Mindset is everything when it comes to resuming healthy habits.
The first step is to realize that disruption to routines is normal. We truly can expect the unexpected. (It just keeps happening!)
If, like me, you’ve fallen short on meditating, take a breath.
If you’ve eaten out vs. cooked at home more than you’d planned lately, take a breath.
You created the healthy habits before. You can do it again.
Think about what else drops off when routines are disrupted, such as housecleaning or laundry. Frustrating, no doubt, but those lapses don’t feel so personal. We tend to be harder on ourselves for lapsed healthy habits than for chores left undone.
You may be wondering, “What if I have no reason for letting some healthy habits go?” So be it. Maybe you’re in a funk. Or you’re tired. All still normal. Give yourself some grace.
In my 3-month nutrition & lifestyle program, I will help you not only elevate your nutrition game so you feel your best and hit specific goals like improving digestive issues, reducing blood sugar, or boosting energy, I’ll show you how to make doable changes, one step at time. For now, I leave you with some tips for rebooting your healthy habits:
Resist the thought that you’re starting over. You did this before. You can do it again. Believing you can do it is half the battle
Look forward, not back. When you’re worried about the cookie you ate instead of the apple, it only makes you want more cookies
If resuming a particular healthy habit sounds too hard or too time consuming, get real with yourself. Just go do the thing — it’s usually not as hard as you think, and I bet you’ll feel better
Start small. If you used to meditate for 20 minutes, restart with 5 minutes. If you used to menu plan for the whole week, start by planning 2-3 days. The key is to reestablish the habit.
Be consistent. This is huge! But measure consistency over weeks and months, not hours or days. Resuming a healthy habit is usually bumpy and messy. A skipped day or two is not failing, so long as you just keep going
