Helpful Tips For Starting A New Habit

Let me start off by saying I am NOT a New Year’s Resolution advocate. Personally, I place a high value on growth and prefer to work on myself throughout the year as I see the need or as opportunities arise. Sometimes the artificial timing of a new calendar year doesn’t sync up.

If you did feel the need to change something and needed some tips for figuring out how to start a new habit, this can be perfect timing.

Resources for Starting a New Habit

For starters, I’d like to propose a couple of books as additional resources for habits. I’m suggesting them up front here because they’re great as foundational frameworks for understanding habits. They’re not necessary to read in order to change, but some of you will find them beneficial.

The first book is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Duhigg is a great storytelling, so it’s an engaging read. The book is about understanding the habit process so you can create a strategy for change that uses your natural rhythms or current operations. There are also some worksheets online that go with Duhigg’s system that can be helpful if you want to search for them.

The other book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. It’s a more practical book than the first, and provides some specific strategies for changing habits. 

With those resources in your back pocket, I want to suggest two tips that might be helpful along the way. 

Do Your Homework on the Habit

This may seem counter-intuitive, but if you’re not fully ready to start a new habit, don’t. There’s research about change that describes stages people go through when making a change. Before taking action, people often prepare in order to become fully ready.

Think about it like going on a trip. Most people don’t spontaneously fly to Italy and begin touring the country. They map out when they want to go, arrange time off work, determine the sights they want to see, and then start booking tickets. The action step, booking tickets, came after many weeks of planning and preparing. Once all the information was gathered, the actions were easy.

This can be the same with starting a new habit. Take time to think through the obstacles you may face and determine how you can overcome them. This may take a bit of research, planning, and talking to others in order to gather enough information. Once you’re equipped, however, you will likely feel more confident about starting the habit and ready to take action.

Getting a New Habit Started

When starting a new habit, many people look for some sort of magic formula to make it as easy as possible. This is understandable when faced with change! You want to reduce the discomfort and chart a path forward that will guarantee success.

The trick to getting started with many challenging but important things is that there is no magic formula. And many times, there’s no way to make it less uncomfortable. Take exercise, for example. If you want to start jogging, getting up in the morning to run is just plain difficult. It’s early, you’re tired, it’s cold outside, it hurts your legs, and when you’re done you feel sore for a few days. There’s no way around that.

Acceptance about this can make a significant change for you. When you stop trying to avoid the discomfort of starting something new but allow it to be part of the process, you let go of your resistance and give yourself the opportunity to better succeed.

So how to you accept the discomfort? Try self-talk. Tell yourself ahead of time that what you’re starting is going to be uncomfortable. Walk yourself through waking up early, feeling tired and not wanting to get out of bed, feeling cold as you first step outside, and feeling your body ache as you run. Then remind yourself this is part of the process. This is what it takes to achieve your goal, but the pain or discomfort will not last.

When you actually start the new habit, you’ll immediately see all your mental prep work paying off. You’ll experience the discomfort but because you were already anticipating it, you made space for it and didn’t resist. You let it happen and continued on toward your goal.

Start Over…and Over

Another issue many people face when starting a new habit is giving up. Inevitably, something happens that makes it too difficult or you just get tired of pushing through, and you give up. Maybe you try your best but fail. Whatever the scenario, it’s always tempting to quit. That’s okay!

Just like you made space for acceptance for the discomfort of starting, you can also make space to accept that you might fail or give up. Or maybe just feel that way. Let those feelings and responses be a part of the process without resisting.

When you fall off the horse, so to speak, take some time to dust yourself off. Then consider getting back on - but don’t do it right away. Try mentally walking yourself through the process, identifying what’s so challenging for you that made you fail or give up. Imagine yourself working through that to see if you can understand it better or maybe trying to overcome it with more calm and patience.

With this mental preparation in hand, start over. Get back on the horse and try again - this time with that mental preparation as a tool. Use it to see if you missed something or if there’s something else you can do differently to achieve a better result. 

You may not succeed right away, but the hope is this brings you one step closer to your goal. One less obstacle means less friction and more momentum! If you need help getting started on your new habit, book an appointment to start counseling for anxiety in Tigard, OR.

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Start Counseling for Anxiety in Tigard, OR Today

Starting a new habit can take time and lead to intense anxiety and worry. Our team of skilled therapists is ready to help you find the best ways to move through this season of life, in spite of your anxiety. Contact us today to talk about how we can help you start feeling more grounded and to schedule an appointment with one of our counselors. We offer both face-to-face (in-person) counseling sessions and online video counseling to residents in the state of Oregon.

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