How to form good habits

They say it takes 66 days for a new behaviour to become a habit. That’s just over 2 months, which seems like a long time, but also not that long if we’re talking about genuinely impactful—even life-changing—habits.

The wonderful thing about practicing a regular behaviour is that it does get easier after a few weeks, even before you reach that 66-day mark. At some point toward the end of 2020, I challenged myself to get up earlier in the hope of getting some exercise in before work. At first, it felt impossibly difficult, 6am may as well have been 2am. But soon enough, it became easier; my body stopped resisting. If anything, my sleep improved because I was going to bed earlier knowing I’d need to get up earlier. It made me value sleep more, and really reflect on the effect of getting enough rest versus not. Now, in 2021, I find I’m able to get up at 5:30 with relative ease, though it’s admittedly very, very rare that my alarm goes off and I’m bouncing out of bed. And of course, there are days where I hit 'snooze' on my alarm and in favour of another hour of sleep. Still, it’s all a work in progress, right? 

I think it’s important to note that not all good habits need to align with traditionally-valued health and wellbeing practices. There’s a common trend on social media that encourages people to get up at 5:30 (or earlier) to journal, meditate, and recite positive affirmations. It’s true, these things have proven benefits in regard to improving mindset and a sense of personal satisfaction. However, a habit is more than that; it’s centred on the pursuit of something deeply personal, something which feels good on an instinctive level. It can be as simple as making your bed every morning, developing a good skincare routine, making time to prepare food to take to work or uni instead of buying it, going for a walk every day or a few times a week, calling your friends more to check-in, or a myriad of other things. There’s no one-size-fits all approach. The important thing is to be kind to yourself, and to align your daily practices with what makes you feel good.