Upgrade Your Autopilot

Thought For The Week

No behaviour happens in isolation, what we do one minute usually dictates what we do the next, kind of like a chain reaction: It gets dark, so I get up from my desk and turn the light on; I’m up, so I make a cup of tea; I notice the teabags are running low, so I jump online to add some more to next week’s grocery order; I’m now on the internet and I disappear down a rabbit hole. When it comes to making and breaking habits, this connectedness of behaviours can be our downfall—but it can also work to our advantage.

Exercise Tip

Making exercise a habit is essential if you’re chasing any long-term health or fitness goal. But it can be hard to get going. Try leveraging off other behaviours to get yourself started: See stairs? Make a habit of taking them instead of the escalator. Planning to workout first thing tomorrow morning? Lay your gym kit out so that putting it on is the first thing you do when you get out of bed. Boiling the kettle? Do bodyweight squats or a plank while you wait. Brushing your teeth? Stand on one leg. You get the idea...

Nutrition Tip

Habits can form when we inadvertently tag food or drink to a particular time or place. We might treat ourselves to a trip to the cinema: We arrive in a treat-ourselves mood, and buy a box of popcorn, a can of Coke and a bag of Minstrels to boost the feel-good factor. But it can be easy to make a habit of tagging edible add-ons to our cinema visits, because not doing so would feel like we were reducing the experience to less of a treat. Try an accountability buddy: It creates an immediate cost to our action because we care deeply about what others think, and we don’t want them to form a lesser opinion of us.

Links & Resources

Book: The habit making and breaking bible: Atomic Habits, by James Clear.

Article: If you're not keen to buy the book but you do want to learn more about what James calls habit stacking, check out this link.

Product: Looking to build an exercise habit at home? Fitness Superstore is my go-to for all my equipment needs.

Inspirational Quote

"Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity."

Saint Augustine