"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle.
Happy March everyone! We are 3 months into 2018. Can you believe it?
March is the month known for basketball, erratic weather, the beginning of spring, and, yes, lucky leprechaun’s wearing green. I love Spring! March gives me hope that the seasons will change and winter will end.
The winter months can be difficult for many people with cold/flu season, freezing temperatures, and shorter days. We want to hunker down in our pajamas, watch Netflix, and eat warm comfort foods.I heard a statistic the other day that said more people feel down and depressed during the winter and unmotivated. Does this sound familiar to you?
Well GOOD NEWS, spring is around the corner! It’s time to put those New Years Resolutions into ACTION. For many people action can be the hardest step to take in achieving goals.
It's hard to find the motivation needed to keep the Habits going we started at the new year. Healthy actions become effortless when they become habits. We all have habits, routines and actions we take without even thinking about it. Do you remember brushing your teeth this morning? Or driving your car to work? Or checking Facebook?
Our brain loves habits because it doesn’t have to work as hard and actions become more automatic. Habits form in a 3 part process: the cue, the routine, and the reward. Our brains seek pleasure and avoid pain, so when our brain gets a reward from the behavior, it remembers the process and a “habit loop” is formed (Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit). Brushing our teeth for example. We may be cued by morning breath or the film on our teeth, we brush our teeth with minty toothpaste, and get the reward of the tingling minty freshness. So, creating health habits is simply about finding what will cue you and what will reward you.
What habits do you want to create?