Relapse is a term that’s usually used in talking about alcohol and drugs. However, it can be applied to any habit. 

Maybe you stuck to your diet for weeks, and then overindulged at an office birthday party. Maybe you went 10 years without a cigarette, and then bought a pack when you broke up with your boyfriend or girlfriend. 

Remember that your ultimate success in developing healthy habits is more important than any backsliding. 

Use these suggestions to prevent and recover from relapses. 

Preventing a Relapse 

Think of relapses as part of a process rather than unpredictable events. If you pay attention to what you’re feeling and thinking, you may be able to avoid a setback. 

Try these techniques: 

1. Deal with emotions. Your feelings may be the first sign that you’re headed for a fall. Accepting your anger and sadness will help you find new and more constructive ways of managing them. 

2. Build support. Surround yourself with family and friends who will encourage you and give you useful feedback. Let them know how they can help you. You might want to search for support groups in your community or participate in forums online. 

3. Know your triggers. You sometimes need to limit contact with old friends who engage in the habit you’re trying to break. Certain places or situations could also make you vulnerable to relapsing. 

4. Wait it out. What if you have an urge to go on a shopping spree or bite your nails? Try waiting 5 or 10 minutes to see if it passes. It’s a quick solution that often works. 

5. Seek moderation. Being too strict with yourself can backfire. A restrictive diet makes junk food look more tempting. Allowing yourself a low-calorie dessert like fruit could help you avoid binging on donuts and cheesecake. 

6. Focus on consequences. Before you take a step backwards, think through what will happen. Is wasting time on social media causing you trouble at work? 

7. Practice self-care. Protecting your physical and mental wellbeing is essential for reaching your goals. Eat sensible amounts of whole foods, exercise regularly, and make sleep a top priority. 

Recovering From a Relapse 

If it’s too late to prevent a relapse, you can still turn things around. Put your slip-up behind you and keep building on the progress that you’ve already made. 

These actions will help you get back on track:

1. Face the truth. It can be difficult to admit that you’ve relapsed. Be honest with yourself and take accountability for your decisions. 

2. Remember your purpose. It may help to think about your original reasons for making changes in your life. They may be so compelling that you’ll be ready to try again, or you may need to find another source of motivation. 

3. Forgive yourself. Be kind and compassionate toward yourself, especially while you’re struggling. Use your self-talk to boost your confidence. Let go of the past and concentrate on what you can do today. 

4. Break it down. Trying to make lifelong commitments may seem overwhelming. Pick a time frame that’s realistic for you. You might aim to sustain your new habits for a single day or even an hour at a time. 

5. Take action. Regain momentum by taking a positive step forward immediately. If you’re trying to stop overspending, leave your credit cards at home unless you’re planning to make a specific purchase. If you want to cut down on complaining, start a gratitude journal. 

Think of relapses as a learning opportunity that helps you to find out more about yourself. Each time you temporarily lose a little ground, you gain more insight into what you need to do to make positive changes in your life. 

The post 7 Strategies for Preventing a Relapse appeared first on DuckboardsAndStilts.com.

With the right habits, you can be a millionaire, have a perfect set of abs, and have the relationship of your dreams. Just think about that for a moment. Effective habits are the key to accomplishing anything. 

Motivation is largely irrelevant when it comes to habits. You don’t have to be motivated to brush your teeth – you just do it without fighting with yourself. 

Unfortunately, no one taught us how to create a good habit. If you can create habits at will, you become unstoppable. 

Follow this process to create the habits you need to excel at life: 

1. Identify the habit you want to create. Often, people are too vague in their objectives. They might want to “eat healthier”, for example. But that’s not a well-defined habit. “Eat one cup of vegetables with every meal” is a habit. 

• Be clear on the habit you want to create, whether it’s 50 pushups each day or reading 10 pages of a book. It should be obvious to you by the end of the day whether you’ve done it or not. 

2. List the benefits of that habit. Why do you want to create this habit? What are you getting out of it? Convince yourself that this is worth your time and effort. Create a little motivation and sense of urgency. 

• Habits can be challenging to create, so know the advantages of your new habit. It will make things easier when you don’t feel like doing it. 

3. Determine the best time to perform that desired habit each day. Does it make sense to do your habit in the morning? At night? During your lunch break? If you wear a suit or a dress to work, performing 100 squats at the office might be inconvenient. Choose a time of day. 

4. Stack your new habit on top of an old habit. Habits need a trigger. You don’t just randomly eat a bag of chips. You might eat chips while watching TV or when feeling a certain emotion, such as anxiety or boredom. Every habit has a trigger. 

• The most convenient trigger is something that you already do religiously each day. You have a ton of them. Here are a few examples: brushing your teeth, getting dressed, making your coffee, opening your front door, starting your car, getting your mail, and checking your email. 
• Choose a trigger for your habit that makes sense. For example, you might do your exercise routine after brushing your teeth or after opening your front door when you get home. 

5. Make it easy to perform the new habit. If you’re going to go running every morning, have your running clothes and other gear right by your bed. Set up your environment to accommodate your new habit. 

6. Start small and grow from there. Start by having a goal of doing one push up, jog for two minutes, read one page, write one sentence, or make one sales call. Habits are built by actually doing them. You might have a goal of making 100 sales calls per day, but that might be too overwhelming to even get started. 

• Make it so easy that you can’t fail. Anyone can find the time and motivation to do one push up. 

7. Reward yourself. Habits become habits because there is a reward. This encourages the behavior to happen again. Use any reward you like, but the key is to feel good. You can bask in your pride, listen to your favorite song, or come up with another reward. 

8. Be consistent. Habits are more easily built if done multiple times each day. Once a day is quite effective, too. Once a week is unlikely to work. 

Think about the goals and challenges in your life. What habits could you create in order to make your life exactly what you want it to be? With the effective habits, nothing is out of your reach. 

The post The Easy Way to Build Good Habits appeared first on DuckboardsAndStilts.com.

It’s natural for your brain to operate on autopilot sometimes. If you had to stop and think about each daily decision, it would be difficult to get much done. That’s one reason why habits are so important. 

Habits are also automatic, and repetition makes them stronger. As long as your habits contribute to your wellbeing, that’s a formula for success. However, your habits can hold you back if they clash with your true interests. 

Changing a habit can be challenging, but practices like meditation can help. Learn how to apply mindfulness to forming habits. 

Building Self Awareness: 

1. Scan your body. Your mental and spiritual wellbeing have a significant impact on your physical health. Breathe deeply and look head to toe for any areas of tension or discomfort. 

2. Clear your head. Put aside your to do list and daily concerns. Notice what is on your mind without making judgements. Let your thoughts go like clouds floating across the sky. 

3. Turn inwards. Shift your attention toward your breath and your heart. Try to connect with yourself as a being that is independent of your passing thoughts. View yourself with curiosity and compassion. 

4. Keep a journal. You probably spend most of your time off the cushion, so writing in a journal may help you to connect with yourself throughout the day. Notice the habits you want to change and focus on more effective substitutions. 

Increasing Motivation: 

1. Consider consequences. Be honest about how your habits are affecting your personal and professional life. That may include the reasons why you want to change, as well as the reasons why you formed the habit in the first place. You probably perceived some benefit at least initially. 

2. Set priorities. You’ll probably make more progress trying to change one or two habits at a time. You could start with the ones that have the most impact on your experiences. On the other hand, you could also build momentum by beginning with something modest that will give you an easy victory. 

3. Think long term. While you may feel inspired now, that enthusiasm could wane when you run into obstacles. Identify the reasons for change that resonate most deeply for you. That way you’ll be able to call on them when you are feeling discouraged. 

4. Use affirmations. Ongoing reinforcement helps, too. Read inspirational texts for ideas or write your own brief statements that you can repeat to yourself. They can be about specific topics or anything that gives you energy. 

5. Seek support. While you might think of meditation as a solitary practice, sitting with others can make your efforts more powerful. Ask for the help you need from your spiritual community, family, and friends. 

Taking Action: 

1. Create resolutions. End your meditation session with a concrete plan of action. Commit to taking a specific step toward replacing an old habit with a more positive behavior. 

2. Be realistic. Avoiding sweets for the rest of your life could be more than you can handle. Start with resolutions you can fulfill even if that means taking it a few hours at a time. 

3. Examine triggers. To stick with your resolutions, you’ll probably need to be familiar with the events that trigger your old habits. For example, if you can catch yourself early when you’re about to nag your children, you can communicate more assertively and effectively instead. 

4. Prepare for relapses. Habits actually change your brain over time. Congratulate yourself for noticing when you backslide and keep moving forward. 

Many experts believe that 45% or more of our daily behavior is habitual. 

Transforming your habit energy through meditation and other mindfulness practices can change your life and help you create a brighter future for yourself. 

The post The Meditative Path to Changing Daily Habits appeared first on DuckboardsAndStilts.com.

Habits are the key. Your habits determine how much money is in your bank account and the size of your waistline. Your habits determine the quality of your life.

It can seem impossible to break bad habits or to create new, positive habits. Most people have an ineffective approach. They try to go cold turkey and rely on willpower to force the necessary changes.

You already know this doesn’t work unless you’re incredibly motivated, and motivation isn’t reliable. It’s here one day and gone the next.

Create new habits more effectively by avoiding the most common mistakes:

1. Changing too much, too soon. A new habit is best installed in baby steps. If you want to spend two hours each day writing your novel, start with a single sentence each day. One sentence accomplishes something exciting: it gets you in the habit of sitting down and writing when it’s time to write. That’s the most important first step.

• Start with small changes. Then increase the amount of time and effort when the habit of beginning is in place.
• Seek behavioral changes that are so easy, you can’t possibly fail.

2. Relying on self-discipline. If your habit requires self-discipline, it won’t last. At most, self-discipline should only be required to make a habit of getting started. Habits are automatic. Self-discipline isn’t required to eat a candy bar or watch TV for most of us. If you have a habit of going to the gym, self-discipline isn’t required for that either.

• Self-discipline is a short-term solution.
• Seek behavioral changes that are so easy, you don’t need self-discipline.

3. Expecting a new habit to be easy to install. Change isn’t easy. You’ll become complacent and lazy if you expect a new habit to be easy to implement. We’d all be rich, in shape, and speak five languages if creating new habits were a simple matter.

4. Expecting a new habit to be difficult to install. The opposite is also true. If you expect the process to be exceptionally difficult, you’ll also struggle. The thought of doing anything that’s hard can be sufficient reason to never get started in the first place.

• New behaviors are easy to implement if you start slowly and have patience. It’s moving ahead slowly and having patience that are difficult.

5. Relying too much on information. Our society is blessed, or cursed, with access to an excessive amount of information. This can create two challenges:

• It’s very easy to believe that you don’t know enough to take the first step. There’s always something out there that you don’t know. The need to know everything before getting started can leave you stuck. There’s no prize for knowing the most. There is great success in doing the most, though.
• The belief that knowledge alone is sufficient is just as harmful. You might know how to do pushups, but that doesn’t provide the same results as doing 100 of them each day.
• The special forces have a motto that 60% is enough to take action. If you know 60% of the relevant information, you know enough to move forward. You can figure out the other 40% along the way. Spend 90% of your time doing and 10% learning.

Dropping your negative habits and adding new, supportive habits is the key to changing your circumstances. Unfortunately, our instincts about change are incorrect.

Tiny changes are easy to implement and build upon. But this approach requires patience and the belief that it can work. Remember: small changes add up to big results.

Avoid the most common mistakes when attempting to add a new habit to your life and you’ll find greater success in adding habits that make a positive impact on your life.

The post 5 Mistakes That Cause New Habits to Fail appeared first on DuckboardsAndStilts.com.

The world doesn’t make you miserable. You make yourself miserable. Your physique, bank account, and happiness are all the direct result of your daily habits. It’s not easy to be miserable unless you consistently do things to create misery.

Fortunately, you can identify and change the habits that are making you unhappy.

Avoid these mental habits and create joy, instead:

1. Making assumptions. It’s too easy to assume you already know something you don’t. Assumptions destroy relationships and prevent you from taking action. Why assume you won’t get that great job? Go after it with everything you’ve got and prove it to yourself. Get all the information you need and do your best. Assumptions are frequently wrong.

2. Seeking approval from others. No matter what you do, some people will think you’re a hero and others will think you’re a bum. A healthy adult makes choices and takes actions that they believe are correct.

• It doesn’t matter if your neighbors, brother-in-law, or your mom approve. Making others happy only leads to misery.

3. Comparing yourself to others. There’s always someone with a nicer car, a more attractive spouse, a better body, or a bigger paycheck. Only compare yourself to yourself. If you’re making progress overtime, you’re winning the game of life. If you’re losing ground, that’s a sign that a few adjustments are in order.

4. Procrastination. Time is the great equalizer. You might not have been born into a wealthy family, possess a 150 IQ, or look like a movie star. But everyone has 24 hours available each day. How you use that time determines your outcomes. Wasting time creates stress and drama that no one needs. If you procrastinate frequently, your life is less than it could be.

5. Indecisiveness. Indecisiveness is the ultimate form of procrastination. Choosing nothing is making a choice. It’s a choice to remain stuck and allow life to pass you by. If you’re stuck between a couple of options, just choose. One choice will prove to be as good as another.

• If you’ve done the work to narrow your options, the worst remaining option is much better than failing to make a choice.

6. Only being satisfied with perfection. When you’re a perfectionist, nothing is ever good enough. It’s the perfect recipe for misery. Give yourself plenty of ways to be happy, not just one. The need for perfection also creates indecisiveness and leads to procrastination. Determine how well something needs to be done and make it happen.

7. Underestimating yourself. After a negative outcome, it’s easy to believe you’re less capable than you really are. The natural result is the lowering of your expectations in the future. When you expect less of yourself, you live a life that’s less than it could be.

• Focus on your past successes and remind yourself of how capable you can be. Learning to walk and talk are more challenging than anything else you’ll ever accomplish. The hard part is over.

8. Beating yourself up. Mistakes are part of the game. Learn from them and apply the information you’ve gained. How would your life be if you never made the same mistake twice? You might think you deserved to be punished, but how is that helpful?

There’s good news if you’re miserable. You can blame yourself, which means that you can fix it. Poor mental habits lead to misery. A few simple changes can positively affect your happiness and mental health. Determine how your mental habits are impacting your mood and success. Make the necessary changes and enjoy a higher level of happiness.

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