How to Create New Habits in 4 Easy Steps

Many of us would like to develop new, healthy habits, but we often quickly lose momentum trying to maintain in the long run. These 4 steps will help you to easily create and maintain new habits.

Our goal is to live a conscious lifestyle and to maintain a state of health and we are trying to create new habits that support the achievement of this goal – be it 20 minutes a day of meditation, more exercise or a healthier diet. But let’s be honest: For many of us it is difficult to maintain these new habits in the long run. But why is this so? Scientists have figured out the reason and by following a few simple rules, you can easily create new habits and achieve your desired goal.

Create New Habits in Four Steps

Rule 1: Start Small!

When you create new habits  start small. Choose simple tasks that are easy to complete. For example, if your goal is to meditate for 20 minutes a day, start first with 5 minutes or less a day. Studies show that willpower is like a muscle – we need to train it. And we need to start training with light weights so that in the end we can cope with the big ones as well. Achieving a small goal is very rewarding, so we gather additional motivation and strength from it to continue in our journey.

Rule 2 – Go slowly!

The target should always be to improve 1%. We must resist the temptation to do too much at once. By following this rule, success is guaranteed.

Rule 3 – Break big chunks down to smaller ones

The next rule is to break down big tasks into smaller parts. Even after a few weeks of persistent practice, 60 minutes of reading at one time can seem quite a lot. That’s why we recommend that you break your reading time down to 30 minutes twice a day, so you’ll have a much greater sense of success and make the process less difficult.

Rule 4 – Never skip something twice! 

Let’s be honest, sooner or later everyone will break a habit for a shorter or longer period of time, as there may be an illness or family activity in between. The most important thing, however, is not to give up on the goal. Just because you once missed a workout, a meditation, or gorged on a birthday menu made up of less healthy foods, it doesn’t mean that you have failed or can’t reach your goals anymore. Simply don’t hold any bad feelings against yourself fors slipping, be kind to yourself and get right back on track. 

We hope that these tips will help you to start implementing your plans that have been postponed so far. And if a regular yoga practice has been your list of new habits to be created for a long time already, but still don’t know which studio to choose, check out the best yoga studios in Budapest!

If you would like to read more on how to create new habits, check out James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”, where he describes in detail how to turn your life around.

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