People tend to do way too much when it comes to trying to create a healthy lifestyle. I’ve seen this time and time again as people start strong, but finish in a worse spot than when it all began. Not only did I see other people do this, but I did this in my own life as well.
I would try to do too much, and I would try to bite off more than I could chew. I’d always try to be perfect, and that just doesn’t work. What I found is that there are three simple steps to help make your life more sustainable.
Create A Goal Around Your Core Values
Step one is that you need to know where you want to go. So write down a goal of where you want to be at in one year. Okay. You have to have some sort of direction about what’s important to you. And when you’re making those goals, I like to attach core values.
Things that are true to your core and that will not change no matter what. The reason I combine the goal and core value together is because it eliminates any contradiction within yourself that might happen. I can now be certain that I wont have to change what really matters to me in order to achieve my goal.
Small Goals Lead to Big Results
Step two – pick one thing that you’re going to do for the next 66 days. Research has shown the sweet spot is around the 66 day mark to change a habit.
Let us say that the focus will be improving our nutrition. Over the next 66 days, nutrition is going to be our only focus. And during that 66 days, we’re going to break it up into two-week increments.
The first two weeks the sole focus is water intake. Your goal would be something like, “I’m going to drink half of my body weight in ounces in water for the next two weeks.” And then at the end of that two weeks, I’m going to eat protein in every meal. And then after that, I’m going to eat a vegetable in every meal.
These are small changes, but they make a big difference. Instead of going for the goal of eating less and eating healthy, you now have a sustainable plan to shape new habits in your life. The goal is that you will be able to maintain these new changes, rather than do a quick fix only to fall off again.
Don’t Expect Perfection – Learn From Mistakes
The third step kind of ties back into number one a little bit. Understanding your real true purpose for why you’re doing what you’re doing and that you’re never going to be perfect at it no matter how long you’ve been doing it.
Changing old habits is a process and takes lots of time and lots of failures, but that is where we grow as individuals. It is easy to beat yourself up or even give up completely, but if you can learn to focus on your mistakes, you can turn those weaknesses or failures into some real strengths.
I recommend keeping a journal either on your phone or on paper of all the times you “slip up.” This will allow you to look back on previous failures and successes and see what went wrong and what went right. Now you can begin to fine tune the process and experience lasting change.
Create a healthy lifestyle by keeping it simple
If you stick to these three tips you will begin to see real change take place in your life. Just to recap the three steps; number one – write a one year goal and include your three core values. Number two – make one focus for the next 66 days. With that focus you will pick one small goal to accomplish every two weeks to help achieve your 66 day goal. Number three – don’t expect perfection. Aim for small progress every day. Improving by just 1% a day will add up to a 37% improvement by the end of the year. That is some real life changing stuff right there.
If you struggle to create a sustainable and healthy lifestyle, we want to help. We are a Topeka, KS based gym, but coach people all around the US on helping them reach their goals and create a better lifestyle. Click the link ——> https://lionheartapf.com/join/ to join now and set up a free consultation where we will go over your goals and help you on your way to success.