Healthy Habits: Most Don't Stick Because Of This One Devastating Mistake

Did you know 80% of New Year's resolutions are abandoned by February?

Whether or not you're into New Year's resolutions, developing habits is key for living a healthy lifestyle that gives you more energy than it drains. 

For example, having the habit of automatically working out in the morning will give you an energy and mood boost for the day versus needing to spend energy and brain power trying to figure out when you're going to squeeze in a workout each day or feeling defeated when the day gets too busy and you don't have time.

Whether you want to start a habit of:

• eating a heathy breakfast
• meditating
• working out
• saying "no" more so that your schedule doesn't leave you feeling stressed out and resentful
• thinking kind things when you look in the mirror instead of judging yourself

you can absolutely be in the 20% who sticks with your intentions by not doing what most people do.  

Here’s why most people’s healthy habits don’t stick: 

⚠️ They judge the times when they fall off track because life got busy or stressful or they were feeling lazy. 

Those aren’t problems. 

Falling off track is a ✨ very normal important ✨ part of the process when it comes to creating a long-term sustainable habit, because it helps you to identify the unconscious patterns and beliefs that are getting in the way. 

But if you:

• Judge yourself
• Call yourself lazy
• Think you just need more willpower or discipline 
• Give up

Then you’re preventing yourself from seeing what was missing and making an adjustment so that the habit becomes automatic even when life gets crazy or your energy and motivation are low.

What to do instead:

Embrace curiosity.

Judgment = dead ends, curiosity = open doors to problem solving and endless possibilities. 

If you don’t do the thing you wanted to do, why? What did you do instead and why was that more desirable or more of a priority? 

For example, if you planned to start eating more healthy but you find yourself standing in the pantry eating too many cookies at the end of the day - why? 

• Did you eat satisfying meals that you love earlier in the day or when you’re eating “healthy” are you still hungry and bored with your food?
• Are you eating enough real food that helps your hunger and satiety cues to work properly or are you eating “healthy” processed food like protein bars with weird ingredients that confuse your body? 
• How were you feeling right before choosing to eat the cookies? Were the cookies a way of numbing stress or uncomfortable emotions? What strategies do you have for stress management and feeling/processing uncomfortable emotions?
• Did you get enough sleep the night before? How do your eating habits and hunger and satiety cues vary between a day when you got a full night's rest versus when you're sleep deprived?
• Do you think of eating healthy as “being good” and eating cookies was a chance to “be bad” after a long day dealing with challenging clients and using willpower to stay polite? 

All aspects of health and life are connected. Questions like these lead to so much rich information about what will help to make eating healthy (or insert healthy habit of choice) a habit that you actually *want* to do. 

If you want to make healthy changes in a way that feels like a breath of fresh air instead of requiring “being good”, white knuckling, and taking away all of things that bring you pleasure, you’ll love my 6 month Life Boost mentorship program.

Bonus: I’m so sure the approach will feel like a weight lifted off your shoulders that there’s a satisfaction guarantee and if you're a vet it's RACE-approved for 8 hours of CE. 

My Life Boosting Change (LBC) approach combines an evidence-based understanding of how the brain and body work (including the unconscious mind) while tuning into what your heart needs to create sustainable healthy changes that feel like a breath of fresh air. 

I guide you through the process one small step at a time along with group and individual support so that any time you experience a challenge we use it to help you deepen your understanding of yourself and what you need to thrive.

If you struggle with sticking to healthy habits or your healthy habits are draining you, compare your approach to my LBC approach. What may be missing?

Prioritize the 3 L's for a sustainable approach that gives you energy:

✅ Love - You need to love what you're doing, the way it's making you feel, and it needs to be coming from a loving and respectful place.

Ex: If you don't love the healthy food you're eating and think it's boring, why would you possibly want to do that long-term?

✅ Lifestyle - Your approach needs to fit in and feel doable with your lifestyle.

Ex: If you tend to be exhausted by Sundays but your approach to eating healthier requires spending a ton of time grocery shopping, searching for recipes, and meal prepping for the week on Sunday your healthy eating habits are probably going to disappear as soon as life gets busy.

✅ Long-term - You have to be willing to create a new norm. If you're viewing your approach as temporary, then when you go back to your old ways the way you feel and results you get will go back to how you used to feel, too.

Balance the 3 B's to feel your best inside and out:

✅ Brain (mindset, nervous system regulation, happiness, brain health) - It's impossible to achieve long term results that feel amazing without addressing your brain, nervous system, and the unconscious patterns, biases, and beliefs that are getting in the way. So many of my podcast episodes are on this topic!

✅ Blood sugar - If your blood sugar is going for a roller coaster ride throughout the day, your mood, metabolism, cravings, energy, and so much more will feel out of control, too. Listen to this podcast episode on the topic.

✅ Belly (gut health) - Gut health influences your metabolism, mood, immune system, digestion, stress, blood sugar, hormones - your whole body health! Listening to your gut is key for thriving in all aspects of your life. Listen to this podcast episode on the topic.

Embrace the 3 C's to move forward any time things feel challenging or you feel stuck:

✅ Compassion - Everything in life is more doable when you know you'll be kind to yourself no matter what. At the root of any goal is a belief that it will help you to feel better about yourself - self-compassion can start now, it's not something you have to earn.

✅ Curiosity - Judgment stalls progress and smothers joy, curiosity opens doors to problem-solving and moving forward towards clarity on why something is feeling hard and what is going to feel better.

✅ Connection - All aspects of your life influence all aspects of your health and vice versa. In order to problem-solve and create sustainable change that feels good, you have to zoom out and look at how everything is connected and reconnect with your body, mind, and heart. 

Working towards your health and success goals should add pleasure, energy, and fulfillment to your life, not drain them.

⭐️ You can practice embracing all 3 Life Boost C's by scheduling a short call with me. We'll chat about your intentions for the year and any challenges you've been facing and which resource or program feels most exciting and doable for you. 

Schedule a call here. Prefer writing? No problem - let's start a conversation over email at amelia@lifeboost.today.  

In your corner,