Habits

To foster change, I had to take a hard look at my lifestyle. Human beings are creatures of habits. From a very young age we develop daily, weekly, monthly and yearly routines that basically shape who we are. To be successful and attain your goals, you must ensure that the good habits outweigh the bad ones. And just like most things in life, it is far easier to retain bad habits then it is to break them.

Now I had a lot of bad habits. Coming up with that conclusion didn’t take much of a self-assessment. In no particular order, here is a short list of habits that I had to break: eating or drinking lots of sugar – almost on a daily basis; consuming such large quantities of food; snacking throughout the day; eating way too late on most nights; and binging on junk food. All of these bad habits sabotaged any progress I was making.

My good habits revolved around my good work ethic and passion for being active. Despite my fluctuating weight after football throughout the years, I still remained active. I’m not lazy, nor am I the type of person who complains a lot. I workout or do some kind of physical activity almost every day. I like having a routine which allows me to do a variety of cardio, weight lifting and sports. Doing circuit training is my preference because it’s high in intensity and short in duration. I also like to split my routine by doing some exercises in the morning before work and the other portion during my lunch break.

Why does it seem like adopting good habits entails more work and effort? It doesn’t seem like it, it does! Bottom line you have to put in work to see desired results. You have to be disciplined and consistent. By breaking bad habits and adopting good ones you are in essence, with time, creating new behaviors. It may seem a little overwhelming to try to do all of this at once. So start off by eliminating one bad habit and establishing a good one. One method I used to form these good habits was developing a morning routine. Often times when you win your morning, you win your day. At the very least you set a standard that you attempt to maintain or surpass during your day.

Lenard Sémajuste