As you reflect on 2022 it’s normal to feel proud of everything you accomplished, while still recognizing that there are important dreams you haven’t achieved yet. As you highlight the space between where you are and where you ultimately want to be, find encouragement in the fact that anything is possible and your 2023 goals can reflect that.
You may be wondering, how can I make my dreams and goals a reality in the new year? The answer is found in the small or atomic habits you perform each and every day. A habit is essentially a shortcut that your brains intuitively make to help us save energy. Think; working smarter, not harder.
Do you tell yourself how to put toothpaste on your toothbrush and coach yourself through brushing your teeth? You most likely ingrained how to do this as an unconscious habit many moons ago. You want to ensure that these mostly subconscious habits you perform regularly are helping you get closer to your goals instead of moving you in the opposite direction.
If you would like to learn how to do just that, keep reading How to Build Better Habits in 2023,
Understand Motivation
All too often, we wait for motivation in order to perform a task. Sometimes this works in our favor, especially at the start of the new year when motivation is at an all-time high for many of us.
This is a great way to kick-start the new year, but eventually, your motivation will ebb and flow. Even the best-laid plans will lose their spark when life gets in the way. This is why building intentional habits, that do the work to keep you on track will help you when motivation is nowhere to be found.
Start Small (REALLY Small)
If you are a GO BIG or GO HOME type of person, this concept may be challenging – but just hear me out. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear details the advantage of starting small. For example, instead of waiting to start your new workout routine when you have an hour to head to the gym, do 10 push-ups while you wait for your coffee to brew in the morning.
Yes, I know it’s not the same. But doing a little exercise is so much better than doing nothing at all. Remember 8th-grade science: an object in rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion. Start small and you will gain momentum.
Focus on Tiny Improvements
Once you have gained a little momentum, the trick to sticking it out for the long term is to flex your patience muscles and allow time for tiny improvements. Remind yourself, you don’t need to be perfect from the start.
If you are a perfectionist this is going to be a challenge, but if you can gently nudge your beliefs to trust that if you can just get 1% better every day, at the end of the year you will be 37% better. As opposed to being 1% worse each day, which will lead you to a roaring halt in your goal-achievement journey. Have patience and focus on how you can improve incrementally.
Know How to Hack the Habit Loop
Now it’s time to get technical. When you are intentionally building (or removing) habits in your life, you can do so more efficiently if you understand the habit loop.
The first, part of the habit loop is when you experience a cue that alerts you a reward is nearby. Like driving past a Starbucks when you are feeling a bit tired. This will result in a craving, which for many of us is very hard to control as it is not the habit itself we crave but instead it’s the reward we want, i.e. a cup of delicious coffee.
Now it’s time to choose the response, it’s up to you to decide how you will act on this craving. Do you pull into the Starbucks drive-thru or keep driving? The final phase of the habit loop is when you receive the reward, which is really what we all want. You either sip down your delicious caffeinated beverage or you drive past knowing that you didn’t actually need a 4th cup of coffee today and that water will do just fine.
Get Back Up (QUICKLY)
All of this knowledge is great, and if practiced will have a positive effect on your goal achievement journey. But what happens when life gets in the way or you make a mistake?
The good news is that mistakes happen to literally everyone, we’re humans after all. The difference is when high achievers fall down, they find a way to get back up as quickly as possible.
So what if you choose to eat a bag of chips when you opened the cupboard after work? Take a deep breath, reflect on how you can hack this habit loop in the future, and start fresh tomorrow.
Habit formation is a continual process. Enjoy it and commit to problem-solving mistakes when they happen instead of going on a downward spiral of self-hatred.
This is just the tip of the habit iceberg, if this intrigued you I highly suggest reading Atomic Habits by James Clear as your next step on your building better habits journey. I hope you enjoy this post and would love to know your thoughts in the comments below.