Setting New Habits Based on Self Love

We are creatures of habit whether we like admitting that or not. Almost daily we will repeat the same patterns and choices in the routine of our daily lives. Habits form from our routines and quickly become embedded in how we spend our time, make choices and how empowered we feel to bring changes to our lives.

For us to change something about our life we often must look at our habits as the source of where change needs to be applied. Breaking or changing a habit is a challenge as it takes us from our comfort zone and asks us to form a new habit that is hopefully better for us in the long run.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Habits are forceful creatures that can seem near impossible to break or change. We often may not even realize we have a habit until someone else points it out to us or we go to try something new.

For example, when you drive to work you most likely stay in the same lane, drive approximately the same speed and park in the same area almost every day. After awhile we may not even remember that we drove to work because this route is so familiar to us.

Now if there was construction or some other reason we had to be diverted on our way to work we would instantly become more aware in our driving because we would be in a new path with new surroundings that are different than our typical day. It is nature that we would be more focused and attentive to where we were going.

The same thing happens when we change something more directly personal to our health. Our bodies are self-programmed to be hungry around the same time that we eat every day and most of us eat a familiar diet almost every day. Hello Taco Tuesday anyone? Pizza Friday?

When you want to introduce change to your physical health your first reaction is to be more aware of what is going on in your body. You feel hunger, thirst, cravings or stress from doing something different than what you would normally eat. This can sometimes be so powerful that we cave in and revert back to what is familiar, comforting and soothing and say we have failed at dieting. It is also why it seems like when we are more focused on our eating we think we are more hungry than we really are. It’s all because we are more conscious of what we are doing and intentionally applying a change that we’re not used to doing.

Even emotional changes like committing to increasing time to yoursel