Healthy habits are actually pretty easy to form… you just have to make it through a few hard weeks. But then it’ll be no problem.
I never took people seriously when they said it takes 21 days to form a new habit. That seemed too short a time frame to pick up something so new to you. I’ve even tried starting new habits like meditation, but they never seemed to stick. Now having completed day 34 of 75 Hard, I understand what you need to do for this rule to work.
Forming a new habit takes a few things – consistency, priority changes, effort, and patience. The first step is choosing the habit and it needs to be specific. Let’s say you want to drink a gallon of water every day, but right now, you’re lucky to drink a quarter of one. Next you have to commit and make drinking the water a priority. I find it helpful to break it down into how much water that is an hour (About 8oz if you’re awake for 16 hours).
Once you’ve figured that out, the hard part starts. You need to do it every day without fail, no mater what. You cannot make any excuses and you cannot skip any days. This is key because once you’ve successfully completed your goal for an extended period of time, you’ve likely done so through all the more challenging days you face in your life. You discover you can drink the water even when you’re rshing around doing errands, working all day, doing two workouts, going to events, etc.
If you can still drink the gallon of water on the hardest days, you can surely do it on the easy ones.
This is how all habits are formed, no matter the difficulty. No matter how drastic the lifestyle change is, if you commit to doing it every day for at least 3 weeks to a month, you’ll prove to yourself you can do it. Then once the new habit is engrained into your routine, you find a way to do it without fail, and it becomes second nature.
75 Hard has simply become my life. The first few weeks were a challenge with work, weird schedules, a wedding, and other obstacles, but I made it the priority and I got it done. Now that I’ve done it through all the hardest days, I know I can do it no matter what.
So pick a habit you want to add to your life. Break it down so it seems less daunting, then commit and make it a priority. Perfom the new habit every day without any excuses and prove to yourself you can do it in any situation you face. With enough time and patience, it becomes a part of your life. Once it’s easy, keep it going, then add more and repeat the process.
Septmeber 26, 2024
