Our habits start at a young age, and sometimes they are copied from our parents. For example, when you grow up with a parent who eats emotionally, it is possible that you may develop the same habit. As you move through life and have daily issues, you may reach for junk food or what you call comfort food that causes weight gain.
To change a habit that has been hard-wired into your brain, you must take tiny steps. Changing a habit overnight or in a few days is a daunting task. Making a big lifestyle change will put many people into fear.
They fear the work; they fear that they will fail, and with that, they decide not to start on any new habits. Tiny habits removes this fear of big change and the need to become a new person overnight.
Using tiny habits means that you also need to change your priorities. You may think your priority is to lose weight fast or stop procrastinating overnight. Tiny habits puts the spotlight on the priority of making the change fun and simple to do.
You will enjoy changing your habit instead of dreading each day and wondering how you will accomplish a big task.
Tiny habits also help remove other roadblocks to success, such as feeling guilty when trying to make a big lifestyle change, and it falls flat. We also try to change a big bad habit by setting very unrealistic goals. Those types of goals require the sort of willpower that most people do not possess, and they give up easily.
Tiny habits are easier to work with because they are so simple. In his book Atomic Habits, author James Clear states that if you make just a 1% change per day, you are stacking new habits that will stick. Motivation to create big changes is something that is difficult to create. You set the bar so low; it doesn’t require you to work on motivating yourself into action.
To illustrate just how small a habit you need for weight loss, let’s look at the top ideas. We already talked about a green apple at breakfast, but there is so much more.
– Decrease the portions on your plate or switch to smaller plates.
– Chew your food slower. You can time yourself and chew a bite for 20 to 30 seconds or at least put the fork and knife down each time you have a bite in your mouth.
– Switch your snacks from sugar-based to fruit or vegetables.
– Drink sips of water constantly during your day. Rehydration in a simple form.
– Journal what you eat and why. You will then understand your eating motivation.
Any habit you want to change or start has to have a big why. Why do you want to do this, and what does it mean to you? Once you understand that, you pick a tiny habit and do it repeatedly. Make it fun to do the habit, which means you will keep working it in tiny steps.
We can use healthy eating as an example. You can buy a water bottle with a funny saying and always carry it with you. Try putting fruit out where you will see and arrange it in a fun pattern. If you have kids, involve them as much as you can to make it fun for you.
Using tiny habits will change your life for the better, and the road to change will be enjoyable rather than a big daunting task.
Creating habits takes thought and focus. As you work through your day, using an app will be a huge benefit to you.
There are many apps to consider, from micro habits, daily habits to the habit tracker.
Here is a list of the best apps for you to consider.
It doesn’t matter what habit you want to create. Habit stacker can help with self-confidence, fitness, or losing weight. This app allows you to build a morning or evening routine that will boost your success.
You start with a tiny habit and then stack new habits on top of each other. Think of it as building a scaleable wall brick by brick.
The habit stacker idea for success is to get up earlier than you did before and begin a habit. Once you complete the first one, see how many more you can stack one by one during your morning routine. This has a free version that allows you to work on two habits, and you can upgrade to building unlimited habits.
This is an in-depth app that will ask you the right questions to help determine where you need to focus. It requires you to think about and answer how you sleep, which affects your ability to be motivated and productive.
You have goals, and the productive tracker will make sure your motivation matches your goals.
Being prompted will keep you on track, so be prepared for those types of notifications as you go through your day. Productive habit tracker has calendars, advice on health and productivity, with some challenges to keep you motivated for success.
This habit tracker is for you if the idea of putting your results into an excel spreadsheet gets you excited.
You can easily view how well you are doing in creating and maintaining habits. Also exciting is the idea of having weekly targets you can set and achieve.
Momentum tracker is only for iPhone at this point in time.
Studies have shown it takes at least 21 days to permanently install a new habit that your brain recognizes and will work to make it happen.
This app is set up on that idea and is perfect for those who feel they can only create one new habit at a time. You will need to think long and hard about what habit is most suitable for you to start with.
Once you get that habit installed, you move to another 21 days to a new habit.
This app is perfect for people with hectic careers. It notifies you of the habits and related items you need to do first, which is similar to do your most challenging task first thing in the morning.
It works with graphs and statistics to analyze your progress and keep you moving in the right direction.
This app will appeal to people who like awards or progress reports. As you work on a habit and do not backtrack, a chain grows to keep you visually motivated.
If you are on the go a lot, you may also like this app because it works offline and online to perform consistently during your day.
Gamers will love habit hunter. It is a goal and habit app that turns your information into an RPG game.
As you do your goals and habits, you earn coins, weapons, and armor for your hero game.
Quirky, but still an effective app to use if gaming’s your thing.
This app makes connections called chains that are linked to routines you are already doing.
You pick a micro habit and incorporate it into an already established routine.
This app will show you a full year of daily habits. It calculates your progress along the way as you use tiny habits to change your life.
Super Habit shows you your progress on a yearly calendar, your current and longest streak for each habit, as well as your yearly and all-time completion rates.
This is another IOS only app.
This app is for those who love accountability. It has a social network where you can share your habit tracking and progress.
You can motivate others while you get some love back and move into creating habits for a successful life.
Creating habits requires self-discipline and many people do lack in this area. If you want to gain more self-discipline, check out the featured resource below where you can get a free detailed report about the Power Of Self-Discipline; download, read it and take action 😊
