The habits that I drew up over the first week of lockdown, are now set to become the persistent drivers of an active lifestyle. Each habit is dedicated to moving forward one of the four factors of a fitness transformation. Training, diet, stress, and sleep. Focus on one, and you’ll get some decent progress. But if you take it upon yourself to improve all four, the fitness game will become a force of nature.
Week 1 set the stage with the smallest possible steps to bring those habits into the regular lifestyle. But here’s the reality of the situation. At this point, even if you’ve been practicing them for seven days straight, these actions can’t quite be defined as habits. They’re repetitive behaviours that will eventually become short-circuited in the brain.
We’re not there yet, so this is the grinding phase that requires constant diligence and dedication. Don’t let yourself get through a day without ticking off each of those steps. And if you do, dust yourself off, and resume normal service the next day. That’s why I’ve kept the goalposts within that two-minute timeframe. A smaller target is easier to start.
Week 2 will take things up a gear, and add layers to the four behaviours of Week 1. This will continue on for six weeks, which happens to be in the ballpark for ingraining a new habit into the psyche.
I’d highly recommend using an app or a spreadsheet to track your habits. Here’s a checklist I’ve built for your use over the coming weeks. Just hit ‘file’, ‘make copy’, and you’ll have your own editable version.
If you’d rather use an app, try habitbull. It’s available on apple and android, and offers up a simple, streamlined take on goal tracking.
By making a point to review and track habits, your chances of getting over the line improve that much more. Don’t just keep all the information in your head, get the data out in front of you and make a game of it.
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