The 'Creating New Habits' 7 Day Challenge: Habits & Willpower

The 'Creating New Habits' 7 Day Challenge: Habits & Willpower

Let's be real honest, it is super hard to keep up your willpower for a lengthy period of time. Yes, we may stick to a low-fat 1,000 calorie diet and go hungry for a week or two, but eventually our willpower fades and the high calories foods creep back in. And sure, we can do those burpees we hate so much for a short while. . . until we run out of puff and it gets too uncomfortable to push for a new PB. Willpower is a short fused rocket.

The 'Creating New Habits' 7 Day Challenge

New here? Welcome to the Blog Challenge series, where we challenge ourselves once a month to improve our health or lifestyle in some way. If you are new to following my Blog Challenge series, it's super easy peasy to participate. Just tune into the blog each day through the website or my app and follow along. Read the challenge post with a journal or pretty notebook handy. Write down any "ah-ha moments", ideas or inspiration and follow the prompts to complete the challenge. I highly recommend using a pretty journal for this.

The Relationship Between Habits & Willpower

It's funny. Think about getting up to take the kids to school every morning, brushing your teeth or going to work every day. Those may not be your favorite things to do, but you do them daily without the risk of running out of willpower. Funny that.

This is because these daily routines and activities have become habit. These behaviors are so ingrained in what you do and who you are that you do them without even considering skipping a day or a week. You don’t have to make a conscious decision each day to shower or drive to work. It’s just what you do – a habit.

So, when you start to think about it, there is an inverse relationship between habits and will power. When you first want to build a new habit, it takes a lot of will power to get it done day in and day out. As you start to establish that habit, it becomes easier and easier to do until you don’t even have to think about it anymore.

Just being aware of this process helps you stick it out. Knowing that you won’t always have to such make a big effort to go work out or skip the donut for breakfast, can make the process easier. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. You know eventually it will become habit to go out for a run first thing in the morning, drink green tea instead of coffee, or make a superfood smoothie for breakfast.

While you are in that transition from willpower to habit, you can use tools to make the process easier. As we talked about this week, you can use a to-do list or set a reminder to help you stay on track. Find that accountability partner so the two of you can motivate each other and help bolster that willpower when it starts to fade after the first enthusiasm wears off. Even something as simple as laying out your gym clothes the night before will make it a little easier to go out for that run or hit the gym. The prompt is there.

TASK: what you can do to help your willpower along until you have made the new behavior a true habit? Write down some ideas to implement.

Here's today's recap: willpower is your new habit's rocket launcher; if you can maintain willpower and your motivation, forming new habits will be so much more easier.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 5 where we'll explore how to make a habit-filled day See you then!

Health & happiness,

Emma

xoxo

Ok, lovely, time to get busy! What habits are you going to create?

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