Creating new habits & achieving results is never as easy & as quick as we want
We often hear it takes 21 days to create a habit when in reality it’s much longer. Even more so if you’ve got years of bad behaviours that have been working against you, that you need to change and replace.
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A psychology researcher at University College London did a study on habits with 96 people over a 12 week period and the findings were it takes 66 days for a habit to become automatic.
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With that in mind how can people with a sedentary lifestyle and poor dietary habits expect immediate results? They just don’t exist.
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Ask anyone that’s got in shape or got really healthy, how long it’s taken them? It’s taken weeks and months of consistent healthy habits.
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The most important factor in long-term success is consistency and patience. But how can we action consistency and patience?
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Consistency is just setting yourself daily habits and behaviours that fall in line with what you want to achieve. If you want to be a healthy person then you need to display healthy behaviours.
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Patience basically comes down to managing your expectations. Understand that transforming your health and lifestyle takes time. It can take weeks and months of being consistent with your habits for changes to happen, so don’t worry if it doesn’t happen quickly. Set yourself a realistic timeframe and adopt a long-term approach to getting there.
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You will also encounter obstacles and obstructions along the way - sleep deprivation, sick children, excessive workloads, social occasions etc to take you off track. Accept this will happen and stay focused on the long term approach. This is why so few are successful. It’s not easy.
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Take home point – You will always have challenges in life, so accept they will occur and not let it take you off track. Hold yourself accountable to small daily actions that you can sustain and then you’ll be much more likely to stay consistent and continue towards your goals.
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Train hard, eat right and enjoy the process.
Oliver
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