Today I’m sharing with you something that is so important to me and something that I’ve worked really hard on as a way of supporting me, my life, my business, my family and every other way to be honest.
And that is the habits I’ve created!
And more importantly, the power of habits.
Today I’m going to share why habits are so important and key to making positive change, and then I have a very special invitation for you.
Firstly, let’s look at what a habit is.
A habit is a routine of behaviour that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously. The American Journal of Psychology defined a "habit, from the standpoint of psychology, [as] a more or less fixed way of thinking, willing, or feeling acquired through previous repetition of a mental experience.".
Research shows that a stunning 43% of everyday actions are enacted habitually while people are thinking about something else.
If we break it down further, our habits are the things that we do over and over again without thinking. They are the things that we regularly do and often are hard to give up.
Which is why it’s easy to see why habits can either work for or against you.
Let’s look at some really basic habits you might do every day and see if they’re healthy or unhealthy…
You brush your teeth as soon as you get out of bed - healthy
As soon as you wake up you reach for your phone and start scrolling - unhealthy
You get up and put the kettle on as soon as you walk into the kitchen to make a coffee - this could be either healthy or unhealthy, depending on whether you want to drink coffee every morning
When you get bored you eat - again - healthy or unhealthy depending on what you decide to eat
Every night when you go to bed you scroll through social media for a while before decided to go to sleep - unhealthy
Then if you look at other habits that you just do..
When you walk into the bathroom you automatically switch the light on
The way you drive to work or the shops (more often than not people drive the exact same way all the time and don’t even think about how to get there)
Indicating when you change lanes. You do it so often that you assume you do it, but if someone was to ask if you if you remember it, you may not
I hope through these super simple examples you can see that we all have SO many habits that we do without thinking. And often, we can become complacent when it comes to the things that we do.
Now that we know we all have so many habits that we already do, let’s look at how we can use habits in our favour to create really powerful practices that support us so deeply!
Before I had Hunter I had an extremely powerful morning practice that supported me so deeply.
I’d get up, go to the bathroom, wash y face with cold water, brush my teeth, go into my office, lay out my rug and intuitively pick a deck of oracle cards, grab my soundproof headphones, sit down, do breathwork, into a meditation, then I’d pull a card / cards and then I’d journal.
Sometimes my morning routine would take 5-10 minutes and sometimes I’d spend an hour. The time didn’t matter, but the way I did it was always the same. The only time i didn’t do that was if I went to the gym at 6am, in which case I would do it when I got home.
Now that I have a child my routine varies, but the habits that I created before having him still deeply support me. Instead of having the option to go to the gym, meditate, journal and then start work - I choose one each day. And more often than not I now train during the day or in the evening.
But because I had the habit of such a powerful routine to start with, this has carried over with me and I am able to use this when I need it.
Now here’s something I want to share that is SO IMPORTANT - I did not just wake up one morning and do all of these things at once.
It was a gradual progression. I started with meditation. Then journaling. Then I tied them together. Then I added in the oracle cards. Then breathwork.
SO if you want to create new habits - the biggest and most important suggestion I can make is to start small! Think about making a 1% improvement each time. What’s 1% more.
IF you think about diet change, sure, some people go full throttle and completely change how they’re going to eat - and this may work for a short time. But if you want to make it a lasting change, start small. So maybe it’s only drinking water instead of soft drink.
Then you might say, I’m not going to have any sugary treats before 3pm, so making your morning snacks fruit or something like that.
Then gradually build on that and eventually your diet has shifted.
Or if you want to exercise more. Rather than saying - I’m going to exercise for one hour a day every day when you’ve been doing nothing, start small.
I’m going to do 10 -20 minutes 3 times a week.
I’ll go for a walk tomorrow as soon as I get home.
I’m going to stretch or do yoga while I watch tv.
Small improvements consistently lead to lasting change.
One other thing I want to add is to set yourself up for success is to make the changes easy.
If you look at the diet example I just gave - make sure you have lots of fruit and healthy food in the fridge and cupboard so when you open them you don’t automatically go to the unhealthy food. Or if you want to be outrageous, don’t have sugary food or treats in the house or in the fridge.
If you want to exercise more, lay out your clothes and runners the night before so when you wake up they’re the first thing you put on or what you change into when you get home.
Make it simple and make it easy.
It takes time to solidify habits, and new habits are no different.
Another beautiful thing about healthy habits, is that every time you successfully implement a powerful new habit, you are teaching yourself that you can trust yourself. You’re providing evidence that you can achieve what you set out to, which in turn increases your confidence and drive for making additional healthy habits.
You might have noticed, when you feel good, healthy and strong - you want to keep that feeling. So you continue to do things that make you feel good, healthy and strong.
Likewise, if you’ve been going through a rough patch and you feel blah, unmotivated and a bit lethargic, you tend to do things that continue to make you feel that way. Poor food choices. Not exercising, Too much tb etc.
So by building your self trust muscle, your showing yourself that you are worthy of the life that you want.
I actually saw an incredible Instagram post the other day by @therapyforwomen that spoke about life being quite challenging at the moment as we are experiencing what researchers are calling “pandemic flux syndrome” which is really negatively impacting our mental health. This is because our brains love predictability, and for so long we have lived in unpredictable conditions which has left us exhausted. We’ve depleted our surge capacity, which is essentially our fight, flight or freeze response that allows us to survive short terms crisis.
And because of this it’s difficult to recoup and reenergize - especially when we thought we would feel better by now.
So if you’ve noticed that you’ve been trying to do things to make yourself feel better and it hasn’t been going to plan, just go easy on yourself. Take it small and focus on what you can control rather than what’s out of your control.
It could also be self-sabotage playing out in your life, which is SO SUPER common for anyone who is trying to create new supportive habits that may go against or be opposed to the habits they currently have.
Which is why I’ve created a free masterclass, Aligned Habits, that I would love to invite you to.
Aligned Habits is a FREE workshop to help you let go of the self sabotaging behaviour keeping your stuck, and create game-changing habits to make you the boss of your life.
In this masterclass I’m going to walk you through:
❣️What self-sabotage is, how it works, and how it shows up uniquely for YOU
❣️What habits are keeping you stuck and stopping you from achieving your goals
❣️How to create and implement aligned habits that enable you to bring your big goals to life
It’s been a little while since I’ve run a free workshop, but I am SO excited to be back with this one because I KNOW it is going to resonate with everyone.
If you’re wondering if this is for you, well I can safely so that if you tick any of these boxes it is for you:
✨ You keep trying to up-level your life and achieve your goals but find yourself always falling back into bad habits
✨ You are ready to shift away from a negative, doubtful and unsupportive mindset but also keep telling yourself “But it’s not possible for me to [insert what you most want here]”
✨ You want to get healthy and feel more energised, but every time you feel like you’re making progress, the chocolate or ice cream just appears in your fridge
✨ You want to prioritise self-care and joy, but by the time you’ve worked through your to-do list you’re completely exhausted
✨ You watch Netflix or scroll through your phone only to find yourself asking “Why am I wasting my time?”
This workshop will have elements of teaching, coaching and learning and the best part is you’re going to be able to implement what you learn straight away.
If you want to join me, and I really hope you do, simply go to jacirogash.com/alignedhabits
It’s going to be amazing and this is one that you do not want to miss!
Big Love,
