They say one should drink at least 8 glasses of water a day … I  have tried this and let me tell you that the benefits are endless … your body is made up of mostly water, for detoxification, hydration the list is endless so why do we enjoy the act of wine drinking so much more than water?

Why are there things, activities, rituals that we enjoy more than others? Why is it so difficult to implement new habits even if we are almost certain that we will benefit from building these habits

I’m not going to go into the chemical effects on your body. This is about habits, why some are easier than others and why it is so difficult to build purposeful new ones.

First, your body and brain are built to survive. Your brain functions as a result of choices that you make. Your choices are different to your brain. This is a concept that you should take a minute to think about.

Let me give you an example:

You are in the habit of waking up in the morning and having a cup of coffee. Warm, black deeply rooted into a taste of earth some combine it with milk, sugar, milk and sugar some with honey, some like it strong and thick others weak and watery but this is a habit that most of us have come to enjoy as it is built into our routines, and we enjoy it on autopilot executing the whole ritual to perfection almost every single time.

Many of us are in the habit of drinking coffee and feel that this is an important aspect to the start of a productive day.

You are in the habit of drinking a cup or two or 5 of heavenly caffeine driven black coffee every morning.

Your brain has created patterns and releases a feel-good hormone when you partake in this delicious ritual.

Your brain is simply responding to a series of activities and chemical reactions that it has grown accustomed to. Therefore, making drinking a cup of coffee easy and relaxing.

So let’s say for example you have decided that you would like to start reading more. But you haven’t picked up a novel or biography in 5 years.

This is easy on the first day as you are excited and motivated to start your new quest of knowledge, self-love and improvement. One hour goes by and you are loving this new task and wondering to yourself why in the world have you not done this sooner and why did this seem like such a task that you had to place this on your New Year’s resolution list … by doing this the first time your brain creates a weak patter as this is a new and exciting concept.

Day two and day three goes by and on day four you are losing a little interest and decide to leave a chapter or two for tomorrow.

Slowly but surely, you drift off your self-improvement plan simply to have it back on your list next year … but wait … you are still having that cup of coffee … see where I’m going with this?

For yourself to keep reading you needed to build the same habit of drinking coffee …

You need to create patterns in your brain for your brain to start releasing feel good chemicals while you are reading just as it does when you are drinking coffee. Thus, creating a habit.

Over my 20 years of experience and thousands of clients ranging from military men a woman, actors and actresses, moms, dads, you name it I have trained them, the biggest factor that we all face is building new habits. But the first step in building new habits is understanding what they mean and how our bodies build them.

This is the first step – the step of acknowledging – being aware of what a habit is and how to create it instead of wondering why it is so easy to fall into old routines and habits.

Your brain will always protect you – by protecting I mean that it will always try and make you feel comfortable and good as this takes a lot less effort than dealing with stress or discomfort. But remember your brain is protecting you and does not know what is good or bad for you. Not that all your habits should be ridiculed but simply why new habits are so difficult to form.

They say it takes 30 days for you to notice a difference and 60 days for someone else to notice a difference in you. I don’t know who “they” are, but this is a good point of reference when we are starting a purpose driven, self-loving, personal achieving “Habit.”

When you decide that you would like to start a new habit whether it is reading more, not eating too late, exercising, waking up earlier, writing more or anything that you do not necessarily perform on autopilot you have to allow your brain to make strong connections and repeatedly do them to allow your brain to produce feel good chemicals.

5 Scientifically Proven Tips on how to build new habits

1: Make sure it is important to you …

We have all heard someone say, “what is your why?” Why is this important to you? What are you going to benefit from it? Are you proving to yourself that you are strong willed, that you are worth it? That you can make a change

2: Write it down, write it down, write it down …

By writing it down you are cementing it into the world and giving yourself permission to hold yourself accountable for your new adventure. I have heard many executives rewrite their objectives down daily as to not lose focus of their “Want”

3: Do it … Even when you don’t want to …

This is very difficult but remember the time is going to come when you are going to, scientifically proven fact, eventually release happy chemicals when you create this habit…remember your glass of wine or coffee…

4: Start small …

Remember 10 minutes a day is more than you did when you weren’t doing it at all. 10 minutes a day – 6 days a week is 4 hours a month which is 48 hours a year.

5: Reward yourself …

Even after 10 minutes. We as humans can change our minds. We are in control of how our brains work. The moment we understand this process we teach ourselves to do and be the person we would like to be, the habits we would like to have, the goals we set out to reach.

Start now by implementing a small habit that you have always wanted to have.

I started by drinking a glass of water every morning before coffee. This led to a glass of water every day and ultimately to having the mindset of changing not so favourable habits and introducing new ones. 

See, easy right?