When we coach executives and help them improve their health and performance, those who get the best results are those who identify the simple habit changes that are right for them and prioritise these every day.
Sometimes people hesitate with this approach thinking it doesn’t sound drastic enough or there’s not enough of a short term ‘before and after’ transformation to get them motivated.
Think of it this way…
Not drinking enough water for a day won’t really matter that much, but walking around dehydrated for a week, a month, a year or 10 will have a dramatically negative effect on your body and mind.
Sitting and moving around with poor posture might be OK for a day or two but imagine the strain on your body across your lifetime. Back pain and neck tension could just be the beginning.
Compromising on your sleep routine might be fine for a week or two but do you want to risk feeling tired and lacking in energy for 10, 20 or 30 years of your life?
Small steps create big results
Small, positive behaviours add up to major results when actioned every day. Physically you’ll be in great shape and mentally you feel in control and confident that you’re being proactive with optimising your health and wellbeing.
So today spend a few minutes identifying the smallest adjustments you could make to your daily routine that could potentially add up to the most dramatic results if you make these habits part of everyday life that happen automatically and that you don’t need to think about.
If it helps, write up the three headings of do more, do less, do differently, and use what you write under each heading to create some action points.
Actions could (and should) be as concise as, ’two additional glasses of water a day, 10 minutes more sleep per night, 1000 more steps per day and 15 minutes more each evening with the family and children.’ Action points should sound simple to implement.
Then, to get, and stay motivated, take a moment to visualise the long-term benefits of day after day of implementing your chosen changes.
Also take a moment to think about how you'll feel in 2, 5, 10 or 20 years if between now and then you spend every day compromising on what you know is good for you. You’ll be annoyed that you procrastinated but chances are you won’t be able to come up with one good reason why you didn’t do the right think sooner.
We regularly get notes from people we’ve worked with to say how glad they are they took a little time to set up simple habits, and what a difference this has made across many years - there’s a nice one here in the comments for this Linked In post: https://bit.ly/3i3mkGc
What will you change today that has the potential to change your life forever?