How to Build Healthy Habits for a Healthy New Year (Webinar Recap)

We had a great webinar in January, in honour of New Year’s Resolutions. I sat down with Optimity’s Client Success Advisor, Mira Levine, to talk about how to promote healthy habits in the New Year. You can watch the full webinar here. Here are a few key takeaway points from the webinar:

Understanding why we do what we do and how habits are formed through The Habit Loop:

• 45% of our everyday habits are automatic. You are the sum of your habits.
• Optimity can help you establish new healthy habits through micro activities and reminders.

 

 

 

It’s essential to understand that bad habits can be broken by making small behaviour changes. See what can you do to break those habits:

The 4 step process

1. Identify the routine: The routine is the habit you want to change. It can be action that can be mental, physical, or emotional.
2. Experiment with rewards: Rewards can be powerful because they satisfy our cravings. To figure out which cravings are driving out habit, we have to experiment with different rewards.
3. Isolate the cue: The cue is anything that triggers the habit and causes your brain to go into automatic mode. A cue can originate from: a location, a time, an emotional state, other people, or an immediate preceding action. Discovering what triggers your habit is an important step.
4. Have a plan: Once we’ve uncovered what our cue is, identified our routine, and discovered which reward satisfies our craving, we can write down a new plan for when that cue quicks in that we will adopt as a new habit.

 

SMART Goals

• Specific, Measurable, Attainable, and Time-Based goals
• Ask yourself these questions if you can’t stick to your New Year’s resolution:
  • Is my goal specific enough?
  • Is my goal attainable?
  • Do I have ways to track my progress?
  • Do I have a plan to deal with things that’ll stop me?
• If you’re looking for more info on how to stick to your New Year’s resolutions, check out our blog post here.

 

Establishing New Habits can be difficult and lengthy. However, small lifestyle changes and being persistent with your goals can have the biggest positive impact on your health. Reach out to us at engage@myoptimity.com for information on how Optimity can help you!