The Therapy Edit - On 5 ways to form good habits that last

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

In this solo episode of The Therapy Edit Anna offers her thoughts on how we can all form good habits that last.We hope you enjoy.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Happy new year to you, whatever that may mean, you might be thinking, oh my gosh, here goes another one. Or you might be feeling like it's the opportunity for a fresh start. I have a listener question, and it's one that I'm going to talk about today. We're going to talk about five ways to form good habits that actually last. And the question is this. Anna, I literally always put so much thought into New Year's resolutions.

I write them. I have cleared my cupboards of certain foods or waterload of new workout wear. And then about two and a half weeks in, I'm feeling rubbish. how can I break the habit of starting resolutions and then breaking them? I love making them. It makes me feel so good and hopeful, so I still want to make them, but I hate this cycle. Oh my goodness, I know exactly what you mean. I get such a kick out of thinking about changes that I can make. And then it's a bit of a cycle, isn't it? It's a bit of a cycle of we want to make these changes we set these goals and new year seems like such a good time to do that and then we

we feel our hope just plunge as we see that they are hard to sustain so this is what my five tips are about it's the second of january if you have made some years resolutions and you already finding them challenging or if you've actually thought to yourself this year yeah i'm not doing that. I'm not subscribing to that. But actually, you know, you know that there are some things that you want to address, but you just do not know where to start. So my five things are, number one, know that we are creatures of habit. We are innately creatures of routine and habit. Now, that can be brilliant when those habits are good, when those routines they fall well, but it can become really, really challenging when actually we recognise that we have developed

habits that are not serving us. Perhaps they are even harming us. I want you to imagine a tractor in a field. It is going up and down and up and down and it has been going up and down the same old furrows, the same old muddy furrows for a long time. Now imagine that you want to move that little planting strip over a foot or two. Now those tires, those big chunky tires are going to be slipping back into those old furrows. It feels its way along and it will slip back down and we need to do things repeatedly over and over and over with lots of slips along the way. until those new furrows are formed. It's a process. So I want you to apply this metaphor to yourself when you're trying to address changing a habit. I want you to think about that tractor and how no matter

how well you drive that tractor, those wheels for a while will just slip over time less and less. But those wheels are so used to going down those same old furrows that we need to do. do things repeatedly until we start to form those new habits. And we want it to feel instinctual straight away, don't we? We want to change something. We want to address something. We want it to feel like a new normal from the off. And in reality, this just isn't how we're wired. So when we're asking ourselves literally to change something overnight, that is a huge, huge high pressure ask. Now this might be something that you need to do. Maybe you do need to change something overnight. Maybe you do recognize that actually you know what this isn't okay. This isn't

sustainable. This isn't healthy. This is destructive and I need to change it now. So have some compassion for yourself. Have some patience. I know this is really hard to cultivate, isn't it? Have some patience for yourself. Dig deep for patience. And I really love the rule. And I apply this to, if I could caveat pretty much everything I say with something, it would be this, not all of the time, but more of the time. So think about your growth. Think about that habit change as a graph and imagine it being a really bumpy upward line that the more you zoom out, you might just think it's a straight up, straight up line, but actually in reality, it is bumpy and that is not your weakness. That is not your failure. That is your humanness.

Number two, whatever you're trying to change, ask yourself these questions. Why am I trying to change? Why? Why do I feel motivated to change? What are the reasons? What are the real reasons? Is it because I feel I should? Is it because someone's telling me to what are the reasons that you're trying to change? And what? This is so important. What is the cost of carrying on? Really know, really delve into why you want to make the change. If you want to get into this a little bit further, do some journaling or just grab a bit of paper and write down a list of the costs. How is it holding you back?

What is it making you miss out on? What is beyond that change that actually means a lot to you that is hard to access when you're in this habit? Really know the cost. Now the next one, I want you to think about if you try to address this habit before and often when it comes to New Year is those habits that we know we tried to address and we're like right now this is the time finally I'm going to address it I want you to think about why that previous habit might be serving you perhaps it's a way of numbing yourself perhaps it's a way of sidestepping or numbing emotion how is it serving you is it sabotaging you perhaps in a way that you feel you don't actually deserve the good

things that might come from changing this habit. Perhaps sometimes we can get so used to doing those things that are detrimental to us that it's hard to believe we might be deserving of the good that can truly come when we address it. Now, do you believe that you are worthy of the good things that can come when you make this change? Do you believe that you are worthy? Perhaps if not, Do you need to work on your worth first? I've got some resources for this, the week on worth. Of course, my website, for 12 pounds. I've got the Know Your Worth book, which is available everywhere.

Do you actually need to work on your sense of worth before you even try to address this habit? Do you believe you are deserving of the headspace or the rest or the relationship or whatever it might be that can come about? Do you truly want this now? what might be standing in the way. The next thing, number four, is break it down. Whatever change you want to make, break it down smaller. Move away from this all or nothing mentality. I am an absolute stickler for the all or nothing and I'm trying to move away from that because that is the unsustainable. It's that, you know, you aim for the highest and then you set the hurdles so high that you're not going to make it. And when you do, are you really going to be able to do it again?

How sustainable is it move away from this all or nothing mentality? Now find the smallest thing. So think about what habit do you want to change? How can you break it down so much so that it's easy? You know, if it's around movement, how can you actually break it down to two minutes a day so much so that it seems so insignificant that it's almost unavoidable? You know, so that we're just acknowledging that growth, that change takes time. And the bigger, the bigger the mountain we have to climb, the more likely we are just to feel like, I'm just going to sit at the bottom. I can't do that. What little step might you actually break that climb down to so that it is doable? And the final thing is find someone to hold you accountable. Journal about the journey if that's helpful.

And the bigger the change, the quicker you want to make it, the more support you will need. Because often there, as I've said, there is so much more than just that habit. There is a reason for that habit. There is a reason that perhaps that habit came about in the first place. Perhaps it was a way of sidestepping painful emotion. Perhaps it was a way of protecting ourselves or numbing ourselves or sabotaging ourselves. so often these habits have at some point had a purpose they've served a purpose so when we go in and we go in all guns blazing we'll say right no more of this and we don't address some of those things

we don't really come to terms with the cost we don't really think about our why we don't really break it down you know then we can just get into that cycle so lovely listener i hope that that was helpful. You know, breaking the cycle of breaking the resolutions. These are gentle, human ways to address change. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe or review because it makes a massive difference to how many people it can reach. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my three at books Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth, and my new book, The Little Book of Calm for new mums, grounding words for the highs, the lows and the moments in between. It's a little book

you don't need to read it from front to back. You just pick whatever emotion resonates to find a mantra, a tip and some supportive words to bring comfort and clarity. You can also find all my resources, guides and videos, all with the sole focus of supporting your emotional and mental well-being as a mum. They are all 12 pounds and you can find them on animal. Martha.com. I look forward to speaking with you soon.