Willpower will only get you so far. When it vanishes, habits and routines can help you stick to your changes. That’s why it’s important to change your mindset. Instead of viewing this time as a big ball of ginormous changes, look at it as making a few adjustments and adding new habits to your routine. Once you do something on the regular, it’s much easier to continue. With repetition comes change. Let’s examine how habits and routines can help you stick to your resolutions and goals.
Make It Automatic
Want to know the biggest benefit to focusing on habits? Instead of setting a resolution, habits become automatic once they’re practiced enough. If you make a plan and set a strategic goal like writing 2,000 words per day, it will soon become something you no longer have to stress over. You’ll begin to look forward to your writing time and you’ll miss it if you skip a day.
Improve Decision-Making
Implementing habits and routines in the pursuit of your goal actually makes things A LOT easier on your brain. You don’t have to stress about decision-making because you’ll already know the answer. (For the most part.) Habits follow a similar pattern. It’s comforting to know you won’t have to struggle to make the right decision.
Increased Pride
Once the small changes you’re making become routine, you’ll begin to complete each task with ease. Before they became a habit, they probably seemed intimidating or out-of-reach. Now that you’re doing them on a regular basis, you begin to feel proud of yourself. That sense of accomplishment will carry you through to the next goal.
Gain Willpower
Willpower is an elusive concept. One that allows you to overcome temptation to quit and instead stick with your resolutions even when they’re hard. Once you turn small changes into habits, you’ll notice you experience less resistance to completing these new things. When you’re faced with the temptation of following the most recent Facebook booklandia drama, it will be easier to turn away because you’ve gotten used to only indulging in Facebook at specific times. Willpower alone isn’t enough to overcome temptation, but combined with implementation of habits, your willpower can be increased.
These are just a few ways that habits and routines can boost the potential of your resolutions being successful. Hopefully you can see that there are benefits to adding strategic, small changes to your life until they become automatic. Each tiny step leads to a big transformation.
[ulp id=’UOh1XF7fSEYGbTdY’]
