Building Healthy Routines That Last
Rather than setting big resolutions for the new year, it's better to set daily intentions and quarterly goals. Setting daily intentions and achieving them leads to positive lifestyle changes. The article also provides several tips for establishing healthy routines, such as staying hydrated, moving your body, prioritizing sleep, finding balance, incorporating more whole foods, protecting yourself from the sun, scheduling time for self-care, managing stress, and replacing unhealthy habits with healthier ones.
- The article suggests that instead of setting big New Year's resolutions, it's better to set daily intentions and quarterly goals. This leads to positive lifestyle changes.
- Tips for establishing healthy routines include: staying hydrated, moving your body, prioritizing sleep, finding balance, incorporating more whole foods, protecting yourself from the sun, scheduling time for self-care, managing stress, and replacing unhealthy habits with healthier ones.
- Achieving small goals for three weeks creates a positive mindset and motivation to strive for more. Building a healthy lifestyle year-round is preferable to restrictive short-term resolutions.
Introduction
New Years, the time most people set their healthy lifestyle goals for the year. Restrict food, exercise, repeat. A lot of the time these resolutions only last as long as the month of January. Why? Because they set too big of a goal in a short amount of time. Restrictions only lead to one thing…cravings. Excessive exercise only leads to one thing…burnout. Big goal resolutions only lead to one thing…failure and when a person feels like they have failed they lose all motivation to continue.
Instead of setting a resolution it’s better to set daily intentions and quarterly goals. When you set a daily intention after a few weeks you start to see results. The result gives you the motivation to continue and in turn set another intention. Eventually all of these intentions lead to achieving your goal which will also lead to lasting positive lifestyle changes.
Tips for Establishing Healthy Routines
Stay Hydrated
Drink more water. You can always flavor your water with lemon, cucumber, berries, or an electrolyte mix.
Move your body
Even starting 10 minutes a day can make you feel good whether it’s yoga, walking, stretching, HIIT, strength, anything you like to do. Ten minutes a day can turn into 20 minutes a day and then so on.
Prioritize Sleep
Sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our health. Lack of sleep can contribute to more stress, weight gain, metabolic conditions, and sickness. Get off of phone about 1-2 hours before bed and put it in another room if possible. Keep lights off. Get in bed at a reasonable time.
Find balance
Try to find some balance, putting your needs last all the time doesn’t allow you to be fully present or give 100% to other areas of your life.
Incorporate more whole foods
Whole foods nourish your body. Think of it as information for your cells and body to work at optimal level. Improves gut health and feeling better overall
Protect yourself from the sun
Sun protection is very important. Sun exposure is the #1 cause of wrinkles, premature aging, and skin cancer. Very important
Schedule time for self-care
Self-care is extremely important. It is hard to find time for self-care, but if you don’t invest in yourself you won’t be the best version of you for anything else. Find a hobby, facials, massage, nails, hair, walking, journaling, whatever helps you feel fulfilled.
Manage Stress
Stress contributes to sickness, disease, general not feeling well, weight gain, etc. Finding ways to relieve stress is just as important as focusing on nutrition and exercise, sometimes even more so
Replace don’t remove, also don’t completely restrict
Replacing slowly rather than removing sets you up for success. Whether that is changing the hood creamer in your coffee to whole grass fed milk or the white sugar to coconut sugar at first then switching to coconut milk and no sugar. The idea is you don’t completely remove what you enjoy, otherwise you won’t want to do it. You can still have the coffee just overtime replace the ‘ingredients” with healthier choices that you will love just as much. Also, do not restrict. I know it’s tempting on January 1st to only envision salads for lunch with no cookie in your plan for the next 30 days. However, the more you do this the more you will end up eating 30 cookies in one sitting. It’s all about balance and if you see something you want have it then get back to your salad!
Conclusion
It takes about three weeks to build a habit. The best advice I can give when you want to start incorporating daily routines is to choose one or two of your small goals and work at it for three weeks without stopping no matter what. This could be drinking 5 glasses of water or walking 10 minutes every morning. Once you feel you have reached that goal you can add another glass of water and 10 more minutes onto your morning walk. The motivation from achieving your initial goal will create a positive mindset and make you want to strive for more. If you create the healthy lifestyle you want all year round you won’t feel the need to start all over again at the beginning of the year.
About The Author
Tiana Lane is a a Certified Health Coach, she has her B.A. in Psychology and Masters Degree in Counseling. She has always had a passion for health, wellness, and fitness. She grew up in a very healthy household and first hand know the benefits that achieving your own health goals can do for you life. She does not believe in restricting foods, just replacing with better quality ingredients. Tiana believes that building daily routines to develop a positive mindset is key to living a fulfilling lifestyle. Other than being a Health Coach, she spends a lot of time with family, friends, and her 7 year old daughter, she ballroom dances during spare time, she enjoys exercising and moving her body and she also loves clothes and skincare/makeup!
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