healthy habits

COMFORTABLY UNCOMFORTABLE ROUTINES

/ OrganizedWithJoy / Leave a comment

Hello friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about my everyday routines. Not to enumerate what my routines are – I do have plenty of routine videos on my YouTube channel if you are interested. But more so to talk about how I stick to my routines day in and day out and how I add new healthy habits to my routines. 

So I have a secret I wanted to share with you about how I stick to my routines. I have joked in the past that there is no secret to staying healthy. The truth is there is no MAGIC PILL, there is no easy way out of change and growth other than doing the work day in and day out. BUT, there is a secret to getting it done. That secret is to feel comfortable with the uncomfortable. What I mean by this is that I actually feel uncomfortable when I don’t follow through with my everyday routines. Some routines I even stick to while I’m on vacation! I know that if I don’t drink water and walk first thing in the morning, read my Bible and pray, or exercise each day, it will make me feel uncomfortable. I am only comfortable when I follow through on these uncomfortable routines!

I just recently incorporated walking first thing in the morning, and I have noticed if I don’t do that I don’t sleep as well that night. If I don’t read my Bible and pray, I don’t feel as grounded and it’s more difficult to manage the struggles of life or the emotions I’m experiencing. If I don’t exercise, I am more likely to feel down and unmotivated. Following through on these daily healthy habits becomes easier when you over and over again experience the long term benefits of the routines. This doesn’t mean that I’m perfect. Some days, for whatever reason my routines may get interrupted – whether that is because of vacation, illness, or some extra activities or events in life. But the key is that you get right back to the routines even after they have been interrupted because you are comfortable with the routines.

It is difficult to incorporate a new healthy routine or cut out an unhealthy habit, but that is when you need to press into consistency to get to a place where it feels more comfortable to follow through on the routine than not. THAT is the secret: to get to a place where you are comfortable with the uncomfortable routine.

I have talked before about the idea of a maintenance mindset over a completion mindset. This is the idea that these everyday habits are not something where there is an end goal, but instead these habits are just a part of the maintenance of your life. When we learn to accept that, we are more likely to live in the moment and to just enjoy these routines even if they are uncomfortable or hard. When we have this mindset that these routines help us to learn, grow, and become better versions of ourselves, then it’s easier to enjoy these things fully. Focus on how blessed you are if you are able to walk or workout. If you have clean drinking water. If you are able to read. All of these things are blessings that not everyone in the world can enjoy.

A lot of healthy habits are not easy to do and therefore not easy to maintain, but if we have this mindset that we feel more comfortable when we do these uncomfortable routines, we are more likely to have follow through!

The YouTube video I posted in conjunction with this blog post.

HABITS ARE HARD TO CHANGE

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Okay friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday post I wanted to talk about how challenging it can be to change habits. It is challenging to incorporate new healthy habits, and it’s also challenging to change the unhealthy habits. As we end out the year I know many of you are thinking about some changes you may want to make in the new year. The new year is a great time to evaluate behavior and think about what you may want to do differently moving into the new year.

I thought this is a good time of year to address this topic and share some thoughts with you. There are a few things I have been thinking about recently with regards to habits. First, I just want to acknowledge how difficult it is to incorporate new habits into your routines. I have been doing intermittent fasting for the past 3 or 4 years, and while this may be considered a healthy habit I decided I wanted to change things up and eat protein prior to my workout in order to gain muscle. Y’all I did this for maybe two weeks, but slowly reverted back to my old habit of not eating until noon – which is after my workout. Even though my previous habit wasn’t a bad habit it was still nevertheless challenging for me to incorporate a new habit. As we think about incorporating new habits moving into the new year we must acknowledge that it will be hard. If you are wanting to change a bad habit or add a healthy habit, it will likely be extra challenging! 

I think it’s important to first be aware of the internal struggle you will experience as you make changes. It can be difficult to make lots of changes at once, and I have noticed for myself I have more success if I just focus on one or two changes at a time. If you choose one thing to focus on per month in 2024, by the end of the year you will have changed 12 habits! 

Something else that can derail new habits is failure. It can be easy to give up when we have a day where we fail to meet the expectations we have set for ourselves, but I think we will have more success if we pick ourselves up and dust off and move forward the next day. It can be hard to accept that we won’t do things perfectly, but once we do we begin to see the change sticking over the long haul.

Another thing that is important to acknowledge is that even if you have stuck with a good or healthy habit for a long period of time, it doesn’t mean that it is easy to stick to. There will be days that you don’t feel like following through. I have been someone who avidly works out since I was in middle school, but I can promise you there are some days when I am not feeling it and I want to skip the workout. It is on those days that the habit drives the behavior more than my feelings. Just because we have a habit doesn’t mean that it will always be easy to stick to it!

I do want to address that there are some habits that become an addiction and you might need to seek professional help if you are not having luck changing those habits on your own. Addiction can come in many forms these days. So many people think of substance abuse, but we can be addicted to our phones, social media, shopping, food, and more! Sometimes we need to get help from a professional to get out of these unhealthy cycles. I’m mentioning this briefly to acknowledge it, but I know that there is no simple solution to these sorts of unhealthy habits. But I did want to mention it.

I hope this post encouraged or inspired you today! I would love for you to check out my YouTube channel if you haven’t already done so! I will link the video below that I made in conjunction with this post!

8 Healthy Habits In My Routine

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In today’s post I wanted to share with you healthy habits that I have built into my daily routines. I’m not perfect at doing everything on this list every single day, but when something is a habit and part of your routine it makes it easier to pick it back up even when you get off track for a bit! I hope these ideas inspire you to come up with healthy habits in your routine!

First is that I get up in the morning and go to bed at night at approximately the same time every day. I know these are healthy sleep habits, but truth be known I might not follow through on this one if it weren’t for my little alarm clock… my dog! He keeps me honest because he likes the predictability of this routine. Unlike a lot of people, I do this even on the weekends when I don’t necessarily have to get out of bed. I do think it helps me to get more consistent good sleep to get up and go to bed at the same time every day. Of course as with any of these habits there are exceptions and times where I go to bed later and/or get up earlier.

Next is that I have a regular skin care routine both in the morning and at night. Taking care of our skin is important, especially as we age. The skin is the largest organ of your body, so keeping it healthy is just as important as doing other things to keep your body healthy.

Along those same lines, I have a habit of drinking lots of water every day! Drinking water definitely helps with skin health as it keeps your body and therefore your skin hydrated! I personally aim for about 80 ounces of water per day, but definitely take into account your activity level, how warm your climate is as sweating equals needing more water, and your body size. On most days I only drink coffee, electrolyte drink (powder that I get on Amazon that is sweetened with stevia), and water. I like to have a refillable water bottle with me wherever I go to help get enough water for the day. Yes, there are some days where I drink other beverages, but my habit is to focus on drinking water!

I also include the habit of spending time quietly in thought and reflection first thing in the morning prior to doing anything else. For me that includes reading my Bible and praying. I do this before checking email or social media notifications. This helps ground me for the day ahead. It puts me in a mind frame to handle whatever I have to tackle that day. I know this one might not resonate with everyone, however I believe spending time in quietness and reflecting on life is a good practice. If reading the Bible (or some other spiritual book) and praying is not your thing, you could journal your thoughts and feelings or spend time meditating on positive things.

The next daily habit I have is to reset my kitchen after I drink my coffee and spend time in the Bible. Typically we run our dishwasher after dinner, and since I have older kids (and a husband!) who like to get snacks after dinner, there are sometimes dishes ready to be loaded into the dishwasher in the morning. I like to unload the dishwasher first thing in the morning and reload it with any dishes leftover from the night before. I also like to just take the opportunity to wipe down the counters as well.

Another habit I have incorporated in my routine since I was in middle school is getting exercise. I typically exercise at least 5 times a week and do both aerobic and anaerobic exercises. I do have a video on my YouTube channel where I share specifically what I have been doing in my exercise routine! You don’t have to do anything strenuous. Especially if you are just starting out with an exercise routine. Just walking around the block is better than doing nothing. Also, you don’t have to join a gym to have a good exercise routine. Sometimes joining a gym or class helps with accountability, but there are plenty of great options to get exercise at home, including YouTube videos.

After my workouts I will drink a protein shake and take supplements. I like making a variety of different protein shakes with different ingredients, making it less boring to drink everyday. I think getting plenty of protein and getting the right nutrients for your body is important to feel your best. Definitely consult your doctor about what works for you, or what nutrients your body is missing. I work with my GP doctor and my chiropractor to be on a regimen of supplements that my body is lacking. Simple blood work can determine what your body needs. 

The last healthy habit in my routine that I wanted to share with you is that I take breaks. I think it is important to give your body and your mind breaks. Sometimes knowing the break is coming is all you need to push through to get tasks completed. I build in breaks throughout my day – having a coffee break in the late afternoon for 30 minutes to an hour (depending on what my schedule allows that day) can be very helpful. I also choose not to do any work on Sunday and use that day to take a break from social media as well. Giving my body time to rest and recharge. I often end up taking a nap on Sunday afternoons, which is probably much needed! I also choose to take breaks from working out and typically only work out five times per week, allowing my body and muscles to recover the other two days of the week.

Well, I hope this list of healthy habits in my routine gives you some ideas of things you can incorporate into your daily routines. Like I mentioned, I am not always perfect at all of these things, but when I have an “off” day it’s easy to get back to these healthy habits since they are part of my routine!

Here is the YouTube video I made in conjunction with this blog post.