The Nuts and Bolts of Habit Building

themedalist

themedalist

Hello! If you are new to our group, please read our Newcomers Guide before diving into this document. It will help you decide if this group is a good fit for you.

Just as nuts and bolts hold physical objects together, new fledgling habits also need structure and fasteners to hold them together. Building new habits is a time-consuming and repetitive process. It doesn’t just happen overnight. But it’s well worth the effort! Having good eating, exercise, and sleeping habits makes it much easier to lose weight and achieve your other health goals. You won’t have to rely on feeling motivated. You’ll act on your new habits because it’s just what you do. We use the insights gleaned from noted habits experts BJ Fogg, James Clear, Wendy Wood, and Charles Duhigg to guide us through this process.

We have 2 different strategies we recommend. Both are good tools for habit formation, they are just different methods and one might be better suited to you than the other.

METHOD 1: HABIT STACKING

We highly recommend habit stacking as a great way to build a new healthy habit. Simply fasten the habit you want to create to a habit you already have using this structure:


AFTER I ________________________

I WILL __________________________

EXAMPLES:
• After I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth.
• After I drink my afternoon coffee, I will put on my walking shoes.
• After I put away my breakfast dishes, I will prep 3 servings of vegetables for the day.
• After I clean up after dinner, I will plan tomorrow’s dinner & move necessary items from freezer to refrigerator.
• After I weigh myself in the morning, I will drink 2 cups of refreshing, cool water.
• After I start my coffee brewing, I will stand on each leg for 30 seconds.


METHOD 2: HABIT LOOP

Frame your goal along these lines:

1. My goal for this month (This month I will...")
2. The small actions I’ll be taking to accomplish this goal
3. The trigger or cue to remember to do my habit
4. How often will you do your new habit (daily is best if possible)
5. What reward will you immediately give yourself for doing your habit? (Small positive feedbacks reinforce the habit you are trying to build.)
6. What help do you need from us?
7. What does success look like to you at the end of the month?

themedalist

Since all new habits require lots of repetition to make them stick, we highly recommend you use a habit tracker to log your daily progress.

Tracker Types:
• Paper - plenty of free ones or create your own. A simple sheet of paper works! Check out the beautiful trackers below that our members have created to track their progress.
• Calendar: See below. Daily check marks work just fine!
• Tracking apps - some are free
• Physical - move a marble, paper clip, etc into a jar each day or color code them
• Emoji - @TexasGardnr @MadisonMolly2017 and @BMcC9 are fond of these! Have a look!

Whatever helps you celebrate your baby steps and successes will work. But please use a tracker. It makes it more likely you’ll change your behavior and it’s fun to see your progress!

PAPER TRACKERS

Here are some great monthly trackers that are easy to use and fun to see filling out as the month progresses:

From @77tes





From @jamcnewman



From @TerriRichardson112:



Also from @TerriRichardson112, a great way to track your habits over time:



ICONS AND EMOJIS

These little symbols can also work well to track your progress:

From @texasgardnr:



And from @MadisonMolly2017. Make your goal to eat a healthier diet come alive!




CALENDAR TRACKERS



This one was fun to do, although I ran out of doodle ideas.



PHONE APP TRACKERS

Lots of choices for tracking your habit progress on your phone. This one was used by @nebslp:

themedalist

Another habit tracker I stumbled onto that I really like! Each month has a space for each day to be filled in and over time you can really see your progress!