Tips on How to Implement New Habits into Your Life

Article written by Sathyani Kotakadeniya, law and psychology double degree undergraduate from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia (QUT).

As a student, having ‘healthy’ habits academically and outside the academic arena can be especially useful if you want to create and lead a balanced, healthy, and successful life.

Here are seven tips on how to go about making little changes that will snowball into creating the lifestyle you want:

1. Map out what you currently do on a day-to-day basis from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. Ask yourself if you can notice any repeated bad habits, good habits you want to continue, and what aspects of your lifestyle need to be tweaked: study, health, sleep.

2. Work on one habit at a time. Don’t try to change everything at once because there is a high chance that you will soon lose motivation and go back to your usual way of doing things.

3. Commit to the newly formed habit for at least one month until it starts feeling automatic and natural.

4. Slowly introduce a new habit into your lifestyle alongside the existing habit.

5. Be realistic about the habits you want to enforce into your life and be ready for any temptations or challenges along the way that might derail the progress. Stay committed to your habits and remind yourself of the intention behind wanting to implement them in your life in the first place.

6. Reward yourself when you’ve reached a milestone. This will keep you incentivised.

7. Share your habit goals. This will keep you accountable and increase your chances of sticking with a habit. For example, if you want to work out three days a week from 7 am-8 am before lectures, ask your family to remind you not to back away from committing to this goal.