We know the benefits of compound interest in finance. Save little and often, and your small initial investment will grow to a more meaningful amount over time.
What if we apply the same thinking to our everyday lives? We don’t need to wait for that day, one day, before we make a lump sum investment in ourselves. Start with small changes. Build healthy habits into (or remove unhealthy habits from) your daily routine and you may begin to notice the cumulative positive impact the changes have on your life. And on the lives of those around you.
We’re not talking about significant financial or time investments in yourself here. Small changes that you can incorporate into your life can have a big impact on how you feel.
Starting healthy habits
You might be seeking a greater sense of achievement, so could build-in more mental stimulation. Or you might want to incorporate more movement into your day. Or if you are feeling overwhelmed, then finding a few minutes each day to slow down or spend time outdoors could help. And so on. Small changes.
Establishing exactly what you need to change, getting started and keeping going can be difficult.
The language we use when thinking about making changes can also be important. As an example, it can be easier to be “the kind of person that goes out for a short run once a week” than be “a person who will complete a half marathon”. But being that person who goes out for a regular run will (if you retain the habit) help you become a person who can complete a half marathon.
If you do have an ambition end-goal in mind, then break it down into more manageable and more achievable parts to give yourself the satisfaction of making progress. Gaining a sense of achievement is important for our ongoing motivation. Setting yourself an ambition goal of completing a 5k parkrun or a half-marathon may be your end-goal. But putting your trainers on and leaving your house is (quite literally) the first step towards that goal. Going for a fast walk once a week will get you closer to achieving your goal than staying at home. Seek out those small improvements and use them to recognise the progress you are making. Then set yourself a slightly more challenging aim when you are ready.
You may want to feel more confident and more assertive at work. Consider what specific actions you can take in the workplace that will help you work towards feeling more confident.
If you need support with how to go about this, then do contact me. A one-off conversation can help get you started on the right track, and provide you with the tools you need to keep yourself motivated. And it costs less than a pair of trainers and running shorts!
Removing habits from your life
We all have busy lives already. It can seem impossible to add more ‘things to do’. I am a strong advocate of getting good quality sleep, rest and recovery. How much sleep we needs varies from person to person. Only you know how much you need. So you’ll never hear me suggest waking up at 5am to go to the gym. If you feel that you are already at capacity in your life, then ask yourself consider what you would like to remove from your life to free up time. Perhaps you already know what you really could spend less time doing. And maybe it is you’re screen time. But it might be something else.
If the change you would like to make relates to stopping an unhealthy habit, then the language we use can be important here as well. An unhealthy habit can feel like we are focusing on a negative aspect of our lives, so how can you re-phrase your aim? For example, instead of wanting to spend less time scrolling social media, the new habit could be wanting to spend more time in face-to-face conversations with family or friends. Focus more on what you gain from making a change. Be creative about what the positive impact of removing the habit will make to your life, or to the lives of others.
Establishing new habits into your routines
And when you have settled on one or two new habits, give yourself time to embed them into your life. It takes time for new neural pathways to be strengthened in your brain and those new habits to become established and deliver long-lasting compound benefits.
When you are first walking a new route or commuting to work you may need to allow extra time because you’re not familiar how long it will take, or you may need to concentrate more to ensure you are taking the correct turnings. But with repetition comes familiarity. And you may find that once the route is established in your mind as ‘just something you now do’, then you can follow the route through muscle-memory and leaving it to your subconscious. It can be the same with starting new habits. They may appear difficult at first, but can become easier over time.
Starting small can help getting a habit established.
Getting started
We can tell ourselves that we’ll make changes in the future. But what’s really stopping you from making that first step today?
- Book into your calendar 30 minutes to think about what you would really like to do.
- Ensure you are distraction-free for the 30 minutes. Draw up a list off the top of your head first, and then short-list ideas if that helps. Come back to it another day if you need to.
- Once you’ve settled on a habit or goal, consider the ‘smaller aims’ that you want to achieve that will help you move towards your goal.
- Consider what you need to get started. How much time you have. And how you will know when you have achieved the aims.
- Who needs to know that you are working on changing your habits? Telling someone, anyone, can help with getting the habit to ‘stick’.
- Then, decide what your first action will be and when you still do it.
- Once you have achieved each aim, then make sure you recognise the progress you are making. Even give yourself a small reward! This can release endorphins which make you feel good and maintains the motivation to keep going.
If you have the desire to make a change in your life but you’re not sure where to start, or you’ve tried in the past but not been able to maintain the habits, then you can contact me. We can have a free, informal, no obligation chat about where you are and where you want to be. Contact me or book in a call now.