- Healthy Aging
Healthy Habits
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
~Aristotle
Healthy Habits
Have you ever wondered what makes someone successful in retirement? Is it the money or how much they have? Not entirely, but it helps! While money plays an important factor in our life, money cannot buy happiness. One of the deepest-rooted desires of retirees is to live a fulfilled and happy life. But, to do this we need to be intentional when it comes to our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. That’s because when one area of your life suffers, all the other areas will follow eventually. If you want to be successful in retirement, you need to strive for balance. By learning to embrace happiness and inner peace simply by changing and incorporating some healthy habits into your life, success is within your reach.
Old Habits Are Not Hard to Break
Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are, is a result of your habits. What you do repeatedly ultimately forms the person you are and the things you believe. Habits are activities that are so often repeated, they have become a part of your unconscious. They allow you to run on autopilot. These automatic behaviors make it possible for you to function everyday (imagine if we had to relearn every morning how to brush our teeth). While this example is a habit we need, there are others we can do without (like eating too much junk food in front of the TV, or being afraid to try new things).
Habits play an important role in our health. Which is why it is so important break bad habits and replace them with healthy habits! That’s because bad habits interrupt your life and prevent you from accomplishing your goals. They not only jeopardize your health both mentally and physically; they also waste your time and energy. The good news is, habits can be changed. Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But, with time and effort almost any habit can be transformed. With this in mind, we offer some insight on replacing bad habits with healthy habits.
Replacing Bad Habits with Healthy Habits
We all have them, bad habits. Whether it’s chronically being late, tapping your feet, or eating junk food, a bad habit can impede your happiness. With this in mind, we offer some steps on changing bad habits:
- Identify Cues: the cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies a craving (example stress makes me crave chocolate, so I eat it)
- Disrupt: once you know the cues, you can throw off the bad habits (example instead of eating some chocolate eat an apple, remember it is a choice you make)
- Replace: replacing a bad habit with a healthy one is more effective than stopping the bad habit alone (so decide to eat fruit every time your mind thinks chocolate)
- Be Persistent: persistence works, it might be painful to get up at 5am for a jog, but soon it will be second nature if you do it enough
We Are What We Repeatedly Do
Remember, habits are routines you repeat without thinking. So, create a routine for yourself and change your bad habits into good ones. Like Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Your daily habits determine your success. So, live your life to the fullest: Live every day on a fresh new start. Be true to who you are. Quit complaining. Be proactive. Rather than think “what if,” think “yes I can”. Focus on WHAT vs. How. Create your own opportunities. Live more consciously each day.
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