Author
Vinay Palmar
Founder & MSK Physiotherapist
Hi,
I wanted to take a moment to express my gratitude for your continued support and to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year.
I find the new year always brings about a time for deep reflection and opportunity for fresh starts. An opportunity to set aside some old unwanted habits that have crept in and also to create new healthier ones.
Whilst this is great especially when it comes to our health, lifestyle and fitness, we should also be mindful of creating habits that are sustainable.
Research has shown that as less than 10% of people sustain resolutions by the end of the year and on average, it takes around 66 days to create and sustain new habit.
So how do we create habits that are achievable and sustainable?
Here are my 5 top tips:
I read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear (highly recommend if you’ve not read it already) and found this tool really helpful. The idea is we print off or use a digital habit tracker and mark each day we have kept to a new habit with a big cross. Psychologically, we stay motivated to maintain our streak of crosses and monitor our progress to make sure we are going in the right direction. From experience, it really works! Get yours here for free
Big, lofty goals are great but with no plan on how we can get to them, they can quickly fall off the radar before we know it and we can quickly feel like failures. Set goals that are small and within reach. Smaller goals are stepping stones to bigger ones and can set us on the pathway to where we want to be. I find achieving smaller goals can also give us a boost psychologically and help us stay motivated.
Too many goals = too many things to focus on, which in turn leads to no focus at all. Start with 3 to 5 habits. This may involve creating new positive habits e.g. reading for 30mins every day, or removing old negative ones such as not eating chocolates or using social media 1 hour before bed time.
Your environment will play a key role in your behaviour. If you know you do not want to eat chocolate for example, the reality is if it is within easy reach at home then you are highly likely to go for it. Keep it somewhere where it will be a burden to reach and at your next supermarket shop, keep it out the trolley and then you won’t be able to even access it at home. Once it is out of your environment, it will not have the opportunity to be a temptation.
The reality is we are all human and something is bound to happen sooner or later which will throw us off track. That is the reality of life and it is important we are not hard on ourselves for when we are thrown off track by external events. The key is to accept this reality and to bounce back again as quickly as possible. In Atomic Habits, James sets a rule to never miss twice but of course adapt this rule around what is realistic for you and the particular habit.
This post wasn’t directly related to physiotherapy but I am a firm believer that our micro habits can set off a chain of reactions in many different ways.
Feel free to let me know how you get on with yours, and if you haven’t already don’t forget to book your next appointment here. Our team of experts are on hand to help you manage any new or existing injuries with physiotherapy or osteopathy.
Best wishes for happy, healthy and successful 2025! Also feel free to give us a follow us on instagram where you can see more tips and what we get up to behind the scenes.
Vinay
Founder & MSK Physiotherapist
