It’s that time of year…people are considering, making, or avoiding New Year’s Resolutions.
I haven’t done much of this in recent years, because I realized it’s best for me to work on something when I feel motivated to, and winter isn’t often that time for me.
If you are in that place now, have you heard about Elastic Habits? Many of my clients want help in therapy starting or stopping something, and this concept intrigued me. I’m working on it for some habits I’ve wanted to get going, so I can better advise folks in creating their plan.
The idea is you make different levels of any habit, and make sure you do AT LEAST the lowest level EVERY DAY. The lowest tier is something you could do on your worst day (barring illness or emergency), middle is a reasonable amount to get toward your goal, and top tier is if you feel like hitting it out of the park that day.
If you are working on eating habits, the levels could look like:
- Eat at least one piece of fruit
- Eat veggies with each meal
- Five cups of veggies today
This makes so much sense to me, because our goals are often large (and should be) but if we make each day’s goals too prohibitive, it’s easy to fall off the wagon pretty quickly.
He advises working on no more than three habits at once. I’m making my list and creating a tracking method. Stay tuned…
Have you read this book? Are you working on habits now or soon? Do you have other strategies that have worked for you?
