My Most Successful Habit in 2022
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themedalist
Posts: 3,212 Member
Hello Everyone!
The new year is both a clean slate and an opportunity to reflect on the past year and what we achieved, made some progress on, and even a bit of soul-searching on the goals we set that didn’t pan out.
Since we have new members joining us, I would love to hear from our veteran habit builders as to what was their most successful habit in 2022. What was your plan and the steps that you took to achieve your goal? What made this habit stick for you? If you had tried to form this habit before, but weren't successful, why was it different for you this time?
More than one response is welcome as are any reflections you want to share on goals & actions that never blossomed into new habits. Habit building is a time-consuming, trial and error process and setbacks are inevitable.
Thanks!
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My most successful habit has been starting the day with a low intensity exercise session. First thing in the morning, I go to my home office and use the mini elliptical under my desk to take a Bitgym tour of some beautiful, exotic place on Earth. This morning I took tours of Zurich and Lucerne, Switzerland. Hooked up to my 27 inch monitor and with stereo headphones on, I'm completely immersed in the tour and I feel like I'm there! Bitgym offers a selection of free tours and I highly recommend checking it out if you use cardio equipment.
This habit has stuck with me because it's easy (I have all the equipment) and enjoyable as it feeds my wanderlust. I can also drink my morning coffee while I imagine myself on a bike pedaling through these amazing places. Drinking coffee on a bike in real life would be harder to pull off! Because I'm enjoying it, it's easy to cycle for 30 or 45 minutes. When I'm finished I feel awake and energized and I've seen and learned about someplace new. Even though it isn't a high intensity aerobic workout, it still burns calories and low intensity activity has numerous health benefits.
Bottom line: if you are trying to make exercise a daily habit, find an activity you enjoy. Only then will it have staying power.4 -
@themedalist Bitgym is a great suggestion. I'm going to try it next week at the gym!
My most successful habit of 2022 was making a habit of SMALL changes. In past years, I've tried to do too much, too soon, and not much ended up sticking. In 2022, starting in July, everything I started had a low threshold and was super easy to accomplish. At the time, it was mostly because I knew that's all I could handle given my life circumstances. But of course, as the research has shown, it works! From those first easy goals, I would build up incrementally. Pretty soon I was surprising myself with how far I could walk or how much water I was drinking or how easy it was not to consume surgary items.
When I faltered, I faltered because I tried to do too much. For example, in early November, I signed up for a 5K walk, even though my limit for walking was about 3.5K in 40 minutes. It took me 70 minutes to finish and I reinjured my achilles from the overuse. It still hurts now, two months later, and my walking habit has taken a huge hit. Lesson learned!!
I plan to continue with lots of tiny habits and small, 1% improvements in 2023!4 -
My best habit from 2022 is to start almost everyday with a minimum of 10 minutes of meditation it has helped me refocus for my day, developed better posture and the past few weeks a calmer thought process for me.4
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Like @KacyCarpe I had real success when I took on fewer habits, and more success when I built on them once they were established. This kept them in my focus as they were then the foundation for stacking another (new) habit.
My biggest success of 2022 was conquering my sleep challenges, which I have had for decades. It took many tries and approaches, and I am as stubborn as a mule when I fail at something I want to address. 🤩 So each month I tried a new approach until one seemed to be working (and yes, it involved habit stacking and took longer to resolve than doing it all at once). When my sleep is suffering again now, I go back to habit 1 and re-build from there.
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My biggest success in 2022 was to use habit stacking, where I linked the new habit to one of my solid habits.
After being in this group for several years I have developed a raft of sustainable habits which I have now worked into my daily routines. I don’t even have to think about them all that much as they are becoming second nature.
Repetition and practice are key to developing good habits fir health and fitness.3 -
@themedalist Bitgym is a great suggestion. I'm going to try it next week at the gym!
My most successful habit of 2022 was making a habit of SMALL changes. In past years, I've tried to do too much, too soon, and not much ended up sticking. In 2022, starting in July, everything I started had a low threshold and was super easy to accomplish. At the time, it was mostly because I knew that's all I could handle given my life circumstances. But of course, as the research has shown, it works! From those first easy goals, I would build up incrementally. Pretty soon I was surprising myself with how far I could walk or how much water I was drinking or how easy it was not to consume surgary items.
When I faltered, I faltered because I tried to do too much. For example, in early November, I signed up for a 5K walk, even though my limit for walking was about 3.5K in 40 minutes. It took me 70 minutes to finish and I reinjured my achilles from the overuse. It still hurts now, two months later, and my walking habit has taken a huge hit. Lesson learned!!
I plan to continue with lots of tiny habits and small, 1% improvements in 2023!
@KacyCarpe, no words for how much I
your post. You are so right! Habits are created with small, doable, repeatable action steps.
So glad you are part of our group!
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snowshoe072 wrote: »My best habit from 2022 is to start almost everyday with a minimum of 10 minutes of meditation it has helped me refocus for my day, developed better posture and the past few weeks a calmer thought process for me.
What a great way to start the day, @snowshoe072!0 -
jamcnewman wrote: »Like @KacyCarpe I had real success when I took on fewer habits, and more success when I built on them once they were established. This kept them in my focus as they were then the foundation for stacking another (new) habit.
My biggest success of 2022 was conquering my sleep challenges, which I have had for decades. It took many tries and approaches, and I am as stubborn as a mule when I fail at something I want to address. 🤩 So each month I tried a new approach until one seemed to be working (and yes, it involved habit stacking and took longer to resolve than doing it all at once). When my sleep is suffering again now, I go back to habit 1 and re-build from there.
Congrats on your persistence and determination,@jamcnewman in finding what works for you to improve your sleep! Habit building is a trial and error process!1 -
TerriRichardson112 wrote: »My biggest success in 2022 was to use habit stacking, where I linked the new habit to one of my solid habits.
After being in this group for several years I have developed a raft of sustainable habits which I have now worked into my daily routines. I don’t even have to think about them all that much as they are becoming second nature.
Repetition and practice are key to developing good habits fir health and fitness.
Congrats @TerriRichardson112 and well said! Here's another great image on habit stacking from @WisdomMadeEasy.
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themedalist wrote: »Bitgym offers a selection of free tours and I highly recommend checking it out if you use cardio equipment.
At the gym on Saturday I did Bitgym's Los Angeles course, including the walk of fame, the sunset strip, Hollywood hills, and beach run at sunset. It was fun! (Not often a word I use relative to an elliptical machine. LOL)
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@themedalist and @KacyCarpe Do you use BitGym on an iPad/iPhone or YouTube? Or how do you access the free content? Thanks!0
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jamcnewman wrote: »@themedalist and @KacyCarpe Do you use BitGym on an iPad/iPhone or YouTube? Or how do you access the free content? Thanks!
I have an android phone and downloaded the app. I'm confident you could download an app to your iPad or iPhone. I skipped the "start a free trial button." In the free version you can access eight routes, including Los Angeles, Edinburgh, Paris, and Northern Italy. (At least, those are the ones in the android version.) The paid version ($13/month) has hundreds of routes and you can save your workout history. I hope that helps!1 -
Thanks so much @KacyCarpe — I appreciate this! Going to try it out. Julie1
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@KacyCarpe, I’m so happy that you are enjoying BitGym! It does help pass the time on cardio machines.
@jamcnewman, I started with a free account but upgraded to the premium version so that I could access the 200+ tours. After consistently using BitGym, I got an annual subscription for $7.5 a month.
And I did one other thing.
I cabled my iPad to my 27inch monitor that’s at my desk where I have my mini elliptical. Since my monitor is about 12 inches away from my face and with stereo headphones on to capture all the tour sounds: wind rustling, birds, footsteps, other hikers….it feels incredibly immersive. Like I’m there! Here’s my setup:
I’m glad BitGym offers both a free and paid version. Always good to take a test drive!
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Thank you @themedalist 🥰0
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Most successful 2022 habit:
Weighing myself daily & recording it on paper next to my sink & on my phone.
Previous to 2015, I would “forget to weigh” and then come out of a fog 6 months later perplexed how I gained it all back.
As I was losing my weight, I promised myself that I would not let that happen again.4 -
themedalist wrote: »
My most successful habit has been starting the day with a low intensity exercise session. First thing in the morning, I go to my home office and use the mini elliptical under my desk to take a Bitgym tour of some beautiful, exotic place on Earth. This morning I took tours of Zurich and Lucerne, Switzerland. Hooked up to my 27 inch monitor and with stereo headphones on, I'm completely immersed in the tour and I feel like I'm there! Bitgym offers a selection of free tours and I highly recommend checking it out if you use cardio equipment.
This habit has stuck with me because it's easy (I have all the equipment) and enjoyable as it feeds my wanderlust. I can also drink my morning coffee while I imagine myself on a bike pedaling through these amazing places. Drinking coffee on a bike in real life would be harder to pull off! Because I'm enjoying it, it's easy to cycle for 30 or 45 minutes. When I'm finished I feel awake and energized and I've seen and learned about someplace new. Even though it isn't a high intensity aerobic workout, it still burns calories and low intensity activity has numerous health benefits.
Bottom line: if you are trying to make exercise a daily habit, find an activity you enjoy. Only then will it have staying power.
Thank you for posting! I'm going to try bitgym. In the past, my most successful exercise habits come from morning activities, but I get bored easily. This should help!0
