Habit Resilience
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What is “habit resilience”?
Well, first, I’d like to dive into the term “resilience.” I read an article once all about how one can live resiliently without even realizing that’s a trait.
I’ve been told I possess such traits, but I’m waiting on evidence.
According to Google, the definition of resilience is “the capability to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.”
Well, that pretty much sums that up. Need I go on?
You’re tough. You know how to get up when your back is to the wall.
You continue trucking along with your daily activities though you feel as though they’ll never change.
This is what resilience is. Do you possess it? Great, you’re a step ahead than most. Some people allow for the weight of life to keep them down. Such as quitting smoking because it’s just “too hard.” Or allowing for not growth since you weren’t taught any different.
But here’s the thing, we can all do it. We just have to have a conscious mind that partakes mindfully in our daily habits.
So, habit resilience can be looked at as the “capability to recover good habits after failures or difficulties.” As much as I loathe the word failure, I feel as though people who don’t have great resilience see a small setback as a failure rather than a moment in time the expectation wasn’t met. That is NOT habit relisilance.
The ability to bounce back to good habits, even after a day of “failure,” is what habit resilience is all about. Just because one day you did terrible, doesn’t mean you have to tomorrow.
How to build habit resilience
Like most things, this will take time, patience, and the ultimate self-love you can give to yourself. Building something as valuable as habits isn’t equivalent to building IKEA furniture. Sure, there’s a manual for it out there, but until you understand what each piece does, you’ll never get it.
So below are ways that I found building habits resilience easier than that IKEA furniture:
Lower your expectations - It’s really not that I think you can’t do it, but when we change our lives drastically, it’s so hard for our mind and body (even soul) to keep up with all the cognitive dissonance that is occurring. It can create a false reality in your mind that you can’t do it, when in fact you just need more time settling into the habit.
“Practice over planning” - Famous words from James Clear, the creator of Atomic Habits, a systematic way to learn how to create successful habits. He has a lot of great information in his teachings, but one of my favorites is the amount of practising it may take until you get it right. This is habit resilience. Remind yourself of the phrase “practice makes perfect” and change it into “practice makes self-improvement easier.” (Since nothing is actually perfect nor should it be!!)
Affirmations - No, despite what your inner diologue says, you are not worthless for not doing your skin care routine that evening. Remind yourself that you are worthy regardless of the habits you create or fail to do that day. There’s always the next day to do better. Really encourage yourself to be better here and give yourself that time, patience, and self-love you deserve!
Give time for adjustment - Adjustments will need to be made. You’re creating a life that differs from the one you currently have. Starting at, what seems like the bottom, can cause a lifestyle change that can be really jolting. Give yourself some time to accommodate the habits you find important before adding on other’s that feel like too much, too soon.
Be mindful of your habits - This could mean fully self-study your habits and evaluating what works for you and what doesn’t. When they occur, write them down at the moment. For example, if you’re trying to be on your phone less, mark it down every time you go pick it up, then put it back down. By the end of the day, you’ll be mindful of how or when the bad habit exposes itself. This is called the habit loop one get caught in.
Journal, journal, journal - if you know me by now, you know that I stand with the full benefits of self-study or journaling. It allows for you to deep dive into your bad habits in your own time and to evaluate as needed. Not sure where to start? Dont’ worry, I did that for you.
How to become mindful of your habits
Outside of what is said above, the reasoning behind the occurrence of these habits is just as important. If you never break that emotional attachment to the habit, such as anxiety with smoking cigarettes, then you’re less likely to break the bad habit loop.
Finding other ways to cope with your emotions can be beneficial as well. Such as, instead of reaching for that delicious looking donut, turn on your favorite dance song and get some movement going in your body.
Among others, we’ve found great ways to biome mindful of our habits and how to build that resilience. The best way for myself was self-study. Once I evaluated what values were important, I was able to build off of those.
For example, I got really into my skin care routine for my face. I had NEVER, and I really mean NEVER, had a facial routine. It wasn’t something that was taught to me growing up, and it never occurred to me that many people have one. I took a deep dive into the internet to find all the best products, what the best tools were, where you can find the most organic materials.
After that almost 2 hour deep dive, I realized I found something that I needed to build for myself, but it was SO MUCH INFORMATION. I narrowed my expectations down. Daily, I did at least two things for my face, cleaning and moisturizing after my nightly (aromatherapy) shower. Give or take about a month, this was a daily practice and suddenly I was that girl who washed her face off every night (even when I was blackout drunk came to find out)!
Back to my suggestions on how to build habit resilience, it just take time. Give yourself time to build those habits you find you NEED in life to be successful. Once you realize you can, you’ll regret not starting sooner!!
How to create habits & Actually Keep Up With Them
Habits. Habits. Habits. We all have habits. Whether they are good or bad habits, is up to us. When you rise in the morning, what’s the first thing you do after hitting the snooze button 5 times? Check Instagram? What about worrying about your to-do list for the day? Starting the water for a nice freshly brewed cup of your favorite coffee? Well, these can be known as bad habits. These morning habits don’t project you forward to the future you could have.
According to Harvard University, dopamine (the brain chemical that is known for playing a part in our pleasure) can also play a role in motivating our behaviors. So, if you begin your day with the dopamine hits of that social media, your mind will continue to want that reward of pleasure, thus making your day turn into an 8 hour TikTok scroll.
For creating habits, you must first notice what habits you are negatively participating in. For this, Intentional You created 30 journal Prompts for Noticing Your Bad Habits. Noticing these bad habits will allow you to recognize what is positively and negatively affecting who you want to be. If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, and you’re opening the fridge to reach for a delicious scoop of your Ben & Jerry’s, your habit tracker will notify you of why you just get there.
Once you’ve learned how to notice them, the next step is to reflect. By reflecting, it’ll give you time to look over what your findings are about your habits. During the reflection time, you’ll need to look back at what you wrote down on your habit tracker. Asking yourself to WHY that habit is occurring is actually what will change your habits.
Reflecting on the deeper issue and learning what triggers those bad habits, can help move you to the next step which means putting your discoveries into action. Your action step is going to consist of three parts: recognize, reflect, and refine.
Recognizing your habit in the moment, can help you redirect your energy in a positive way. For me, when I notice that I can’t focus on a mental task, such as reading my schoolwork, I want to reach for my phone.
These bad could look like:
Checking your phone in the AM
Not drinking enough water
Putting something down rather than up
Procrasting projects or appointments
Smoking
Not moving your body daily
But instead, I’ll say out loud my intention for the day (I set one every morning) then I’ll take six deep breaths. Breathing can reset your brain. Then I redirect my energy to a physical task. This way I can put on my favorite music and release my mental blocks.
Affirming my intentions reminds me of who I am, and what my goal for the day is. There’s this thing called cognitive dissonance, I’m sure you’ve heard about it, but if you haven’t, read more about it here: Cognitive Dissonance. The process of cognitive dissonance is to verbally change the language your brain is used to. If you’re used to thinking you’re the worst for eating that ice cream, affirm to yourself why you are. Was it your trauma? Do you feel bored? Do you feel the need to soothe those quiet demons on the inside with chocolate? Well, it all out loud quiet's them and allows for better habits to emerge.
Not that you’ve recognized and affirmed your habits, take control over what your daily habits could be.
Following Atomic Habits by James Clear, you can learn how to work the 1% better a day curve. Here Clear refers to adding to your daily habits just by 1% a day, then after a year you’ll be 365% better than you were a year before.
The point is learning how to have self-control through a systematic process that actually WORKS. The process that Clear describes is adding one small habit after the other. For example, if your goal is to read one book a week, what would your process for that look like? What’s keeping you accountable or helping your process? Adding the small movement of putting your book on your bed pillow to remind you to read, will tremendously increase your reading time.
For myself,
I really noticed my habits evolving when I was able to fall asleep at night feeling complete. I always felt that I was going to bed with so many tasks not completed. Once I began my habit journey, my nightly routine feels like no big deal. I have the room and freedom to enjoy my self-care as if it’s who I am.
When it comes to habits, there are many you can add to your daily life.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about how tedious it is to make your bed everyday. “I just don’t see the point, I’m going to mess it up tonight.” As I explained to her, it’s not the point the bed is made, it’s what the bed represents. Routine. Accountability. Room for other habits to evolve. Wanting to read more often? Why not make your bed, then set your book on your pillow. Your room will look tidy AND you’ll have a reminder to read before bed.
