How to maintain a new habbit

Every now and then we have those eureka moments. Moments that we realize we really want to change and feel motivated to do so. We start a new habbit such as going to the gym. But quickly the motivation fades away and we fall back into old habbits.

Good habbits are the recipe for succes! But often we struggle to attain new healthy habbits and stick to the bad ones. In the following post I want to talk about a technique which makes it easier to stick to your new habbit.

Short Term Goals

The fact that people stop with a new habbit is often because of a lack of motivation. We don't get the dopamine rush anymore that we used. By implementing short term goals we make the habbit more tangible and rewarding.

We are visual animals. We need to see what we do or where we're heading. Often this is hard when we have vage or unrealistic goals. To assure our brain of enough motivation and dopamine during new habbits we can set ourselves small and achievable goals. Each time that we accomplished one of our goals we get a dopamine rush, we can visualize our progression/ what we completed and what we still have ahead of us. It gives us a far better sense where we are and where we are going.

For a person new to the gym a goals list can be as follows:

• Week 1: hit the gym 3 times
• Week 2: hit the gym 3 times and at least 45 min each time
• week 3: hit the gym 3 times and at least 45 min each time
• week 4: hit the gym 3 times and at least 60 min each time
• 2 months: hit the gym every week and noticeble strength gains
• 1 year: gain 5kg in muscle

It's important to make the goals realistic and achievable and make short term goals but also one or two long term goals. It's better to underestimate than overestimate.

THINK, REFLECT and above all LOVE life!

Jerimiah