Back to routine

The summer holidays are done and your feeling refreshed but those good habits and routines may have got a little lost along the way.

We go through a busy seasons in life and it can be so easy to get off track. I’ve put together some easy tips to help you start a new routine.

Use SMART goals to keep them up. Here are some tips for you:

  1. DON’T TRY TO START IT ALL AT ONCE
    Long term change happens one small step at a time. The ability to follow a routine requires the establishment of habits. Habits are not acquired simply because we decide that they’re good and valuable and we want them to have a place in our lives. Habits are formed with time, effort, purposefulness and persistence in order to become consistent. Work on one new habit at a time.
  2. Prioritise
    Figure out what your priority is. Make it specific. Rather than “I want to be healthy” You could set your first priority as having good quality, healthy meals. Then your second priority is going to the gym three times per week. Fourth priority is stopping smoking and 5th priority drinking more water. When you begin to feel number 1 is in place you can slowly move on to priority number 2 and so on.
  3. Gratitude
    Give yourself gratitude. Because no, you won’t succeed in making all the changes that you want to right from the start. You’ll have days where you slip up, days where you accomplish part of something but not all, and then days where you feel genuinely successful about the habits you’re trying to form. Celebrate your victories, and don’t berate yourself for your failures. Tomorrow is a new day.
  4. SET OUT TIME FOR IT
    Say your new goal is to go on a walk after dinner a minimum of 3 times per week. But then you don’t put it in the diary and instead you arrange to see friends or you schedule in a date night. Of course your goal of 3 walks isn’t going to work. The goal is achievable it’s just you need to set out the time for it. Tell the people around you that’s what you’re doing and your busy. Look at it like an appointment with yourself.
  5. MAKE IT ACHIEVABLE
    Start small. Whatever it is that you see is achievable. Don’t say right I’m going to get fit – I’m going to work out every single day and get a personal trainer and eat salad because it’s highly unlikely that will be sustainable long term. Start with a goal that you know you can achieve.
  6. MAKE IT SPECIFIC
    I like to use how, what and when to make it specific. If you don’t then it becomes wishy washy and it’s going to be very hard to achieve. For example, if you want to get to bed earlier. You could say “Shower at 9pm. In bed for 9:30. Read book until 10pm then lights out” Now you know how you’re going to achieve it (by getting in to bed at 9:30pm) what your going to achieve (lights out at 10pm) when you’re going to achieve it (9am start getting ready)

Now we know how let’s look at some ideas.:

HEALTHIER MEALS
Food prep is massive on this one. Make Sunday evening designated meal prep time, or whenever fits in with you. Maybe it’s a Wednesday morning. Decide with the family what meals you’re going to have over the next week and get making! Even snacks. Wash them, cut up and put into portion size tuber wear boxes. This is going to make life so much easier in the long run. Just those few hours can make a huge difference. For dinners you can fully prepare and freeze them too!

DRINKING MORE WATER
1. Get a glass litre bottle (not plastic due to the nasties in there)
2. Set yourself a goal. e.g. 2.5 litres per day
3. You now know that you need drink two and a half of that bottle each day
4. Take the bottle with you everywhere you go!
5. Break it down. 1st litre from waking until 11am. 2nd litre from 11am until 4pm. Final 1/2 litre from 4pm until bed.
6. Now you’ve got the equipment, you know how much, you know when you just need to do it. Set reminders on your phone. For example if you were following the routine above set a timer half way between each window to remind yourself you only have 2 hours left to drink the rest of that litre.
7. GO GO GO!!

EXERCISING
You need to do a form of exercise that you enjoy. Is it tennis, swimming, weights, yoga, pilates…? Whatever are your favourites – choose those! Your more liking to keep something up if you enjoy it. You also need to make it specific so saying “work out” isn’t enough. You need to say what and when for it to be easier to achieve. Here’s an example “I’m going to go to yoga on Monday at 6pm and then on a Thursday I’m going to go swimming for 45 minutes at 7am” Do you see the difference?

I’d love to hear from you about your new healthy routines. If you would like more tips and advice then please join my mailing list here – http://www.thenaturalfacialist.co.uk/
Or I also have a facebook group with a fantastic community, join here – https://www.facebook.com/groups/SkinGroup/