Healthy Habits

Hi Warrior 👋! In this module we will be discussing unhealthy habits and how we can replace them with healthy ones. This is important because whether you realize it or not, most of our lives consist of habits that we repeat day after day. When you think about it, you probably have a routine that you do when you wake up, drive, work, before bed, etc. Sometimes, we get comfortable with these habits whether they’re good or bad. Bad habits interrupt your life and hinder you from accomplishing your goals. They can also threaten both your mental and physical health without you even realizing you have them. Good habits, on the other hand, can have the complete opposite effect. So, you can see why having bad habits can be detrimental to accomplishing your goals, right? Keep reading to learn the steps that you can use to replace bad habits.

Step 1: Awareness

To break a habit, we must first be aware that we have a habit to break! We spend much of our days mindlessly going through life on autopilot and not being in the present moment to catch ourselves slipping with bad habits. Have you ever made it to a destination and couldn’t recall your trip? It’s called mindless driving, it’s a bad habit, and it happens to the best of us, but now it's time to turn off auto pilot and take back the control in our lives by being present, and realizing what we’re doing while we’re doing it.

Let's start our awareness by taking out our journal and writing out some of our not so good habits. Here are some common habits that can be detrimental to our wellbeing; eating sweets when stressed 
thinking you know what’s best for everyone’s lives and not spending enough time working on yours 
watching too much TV 
spending too much time on social media 
not going to the doctor 
being repeatedly late 
staying up too late 
playing too much video games 
over eating 
smoking cigarettes 
telling lies 
taking too much pain medication 
Worrying 
negative self-talk 
talking about people 
...shall I continue?! The point is, everyone has a list. Take the time to write down yours.

Step 2: Cause-Effect

 Step 2 is all about cause-effect. A cause-effect relationship is a relationship in which one event (the cause) makes another event happen (the effect). One cause can have several effects. Simply put, our actions have consequences. Let’s take an example of our not so good habits from above. Let’s use “overeating”, what do you think the cause-effect is for overeating. From what we have learned so far, we can conclude that overeating is caused from not being fully aware of how much we’re eating, and the effect is weight gain and possibly poor health. Makes sense right?! Take your journal and write the cause-effect for your top habits. This step is important because it helps you with step 3. which is, deciding whether you want to keep these habits or replace them.

This step is very important because you can learn to take the “effect” part of Step 2 and make it into a positive that you use as motivation towards establishing your new healthy habit. Let’s use our cause-effect example that we saw in Step 2. If you’re struggling with weight, you may say “Not being aware of my overeating has caused me to gain weight and it has affected my health.” This is a negative, “cup is half empty” version of how you can approach your habit. Now let's turn this around, “ I am aware that my unhealthy eating is affecting my health in a negative way and now that I am aware, I can choose to work on bettering my health.” This is the “cup is half full” version of how you can approach your habit, and  THAT’S how you turn your negative effect into a positive action.

If you have followed these steps to analyze your habits and you have found that there are habits you want to keep, do so positively! Accept it completely without guilt.

STEP 4: PLAN

Plan! Plan! Plan! The best advice that I can give is to plan. Now that you have identified the effects, it's time to put a plan a motion. To make your plan, think of all the steps that you will need to do in order to accomplish your goal of a new habit. Let's use our above example of overeating. Some steps to plan how to avoid overeating could be;

1.   Know my calorie intake for the day
2.  Learn about portion control and control my portions
3.  Look into meal prepping
4.  Use my “turn around to motivate me “I’m am happy that I am working towards improving my health”
5.  Controlling my portions and counting my calories daily
6.  Understanding that I’m human and that I will make mistakes, but know that I will succeed

Turnip for what!(Insert dancing), And there you have it! 4 easy steps to help you replace those not so good habits with healthy ones! Now it's time to do the work, you got it Warrior!!

Assessment

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