habit social media addiction

Don’t Focus on Intensity, Develop a Small Habit

 

We love to set gigantic goals for ourselves.

We are not used to going to the gym and suddenly we want to go 4 times a week starting next week.

We eat junk food 3 times a week and want to reduce it to once a month starting next month.

We want to stay away from our phones for a week while we can’t even stay away for 2 hours.

It shows that we really really really want to do better.

That’s good. You want to dream big, you want to see yourself being healthy, active, and disciplined.

After having created such visions which I believe you can definitely make a reality, you want to go back to the concept of baby steps.

Start small.

Developing a habit is not done in 2 days.

And don’t think you can let yourself off the hook after having done the activity for “66 days” or “30 days”.

It will be easier to do the activity but it will still require discipline and planning.

You want to start keeping promises to yourself. Promises that will fill up your confidence bucket.

You want to build momentum, you want to gain small wins that make you feel good about yourself.

If you’re not used to going to the gym and not eating and drinking properly, start with drinking water.

In the evening if you’re used to drinking Fanta, replace it with water.

That’s all.

If I ask you can you do it? You will probably say of course!

Then the next question is: will you?

That will make the difference right there.

You will think that you made it ridiculously easy for yourself, which is good!

Now do it and keep that small promise to yourself: the promise of e.g. drinking water 5 evenings every week instead of Fanta.

Don’t focus on the intensity of the habit.

The habit can be anything.

Do you want to reduce your phone use? Just be phoneless for 1 hour every evening if you’re used to using screens constantly.

Just one hour. Plan your replacement activity and let your phone rest for that one hour.

Then from there, you can always increase the intensity of the habit.

You can change 1 hour of being phoneless every evening to 2 hours.

Ask yourself, which small step of improvement can I take today that should be pretty easy?

Then start doing it.