How to develop positive and healthy habits

Right from ditching smoking to following a regular exercise routine, developing a new positive and healthy habit is a tough task.

An acquired positive habit or action requires more than wishful thinking; it requires a disciplinary attitude coupled with practicality and goal-setting. Today, with expert inputs from Dr. Pulkit Sharma, Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalytical Therapist at VIMHANS, let's take a look at the top 10 ways of developing positive and healthy habits.

Step 1 to developing positive and healthy habits: Improve your self confidence. The key to making and consolidating new positive habits is self-confidence. People who feel that they are active agents can make a difference to their lives while those who feel that their life is determined by fate, environment and other people feel miserable.

Step 2 Goal setting. While making new positive steps it is important to set goals which are moderately challenging, neither too easy nor too taxing to accomplish. If you set very difficult goals you are likely to give up soon while if your goals are too modest there are chances that you would not take things seriously.

Step 3 Review progress. One must review progress at timely intervals to see whether the goals are being achieved in the stipulated time. If you feel that you are going too slowly then you need to introspect whether it is because of lack of effort or if your goals are too difficult. Based on self-analysis you need to either increase your pace or tame down your goals.

Step 4 Follow your instincts. There is no dearth of people who are self-proclaimed guides on how to make new positive habits. While you may benefit from looking at motivational literature or hearing motivational speakers, please do not over do it. Understand your instincts and follow them. No two people are same, what works for one may not work for the other person.

Step 5 Relax yourself. It becomes extremely difficult to make a change when you are experiencing a burn-out. It is crucial to keep yourself de-stressed and relaxed. Think of developing a new positive habit when you have ample time and space for it.

Step 6 Like-minded friendships. If you have a friend or acquaintance who already has that habit or wants to inculcate it then there are better chances that by associating with them you will also develop it. Through such a friendship you will derive support, encouragement and a role-model.

Step 7 Reward yourself. It is extremely important to acknowledge progress even if you walk in baby steps and reward yourself. This will enhance your motivation and self-confidence and enhance your performance.

Step 8 Deal with failure. Whenever we are trying anything new, failure is natural and human. Understand why you have failed and use this understanding to tweak your goals or enhance your efforts. Never allow the failure to damage your self-esteem.

Step 9 Handle feedback. As you are trying to change, people around you would give you either positive feedback or negative feedback or a mixture of both. Positive feedback can be motivating while negative feedback can be extra insightful and depressing. Never let the negative feedback get to your head. Tell yourself that the fact that you are trying is a big thing in itself.

Step 10 Take one habit at a time. All of us wish to change several things about ourselves and once we make our mind, we wish to start everything at once. This is a bad approach as change is often slow and taxing. Therefore, target one habit at a time.

source: TOI