Hi all! Basically what the title says! I’d love to hear from women who have implemented good habits or routines and find out how, or if, it changed their life.
I’m a relatively active person, however every new year, for the past 5 years, I’ve had the same three resolutions; go to the gym consistently, get 8-9 hours of sleep every night and try to meal prep each week so that I can have a regular healthy diet. However, as soon as life starts to get in the way, naturally I forgo all of these things I’m trying to improve on. Especially during the peak summer / winter months as everyone is always wanting to go on the lash!!! I find that when I drink I cannot exercise the next day due to the hangover. Ultimately i have reduced my nights out because of this so I will say that overall this year was probably my most successful year albeit the sleep which I truly want to improve on.
So I guess my main reason for making this post is to get some inspiration and motivation from you guys who really believe that the changes you have made in your life have actually improved it!
I have always been really disciplined with exercise but I quit drinking entirely around three years ago and nearly every aspect of my life improved - sleep, health, fitness, mood, money, etc.
A slightly different perspective from a woman who has ADHD (late diagnosed) and always struggled to keep up with good habits. Part of my problem is that I'm a perfectionist, so in the past I'd decide I wanted to start a new habit, then when the novelty of it wore off and I couldn't stick to it perfectly, I'd give up on it. I've had to try and re-train my brain to think that something done imperfectly is better than doing nothing at all, so I'm able to at least get back on track 😅
Jesus, you’ve described me to a T. Do you have the inattentive ADHD type out of interest? And did you find the diagnosis helped you? I don’t think I’d go on the medication for it, so not sure if there’s much point seeking diagnosis.
I've got combined type 😅 Definitely found the diagnosis helped me, I went the medication route but also came across more coping skills that I might not have found otherwise.
That’s a good point! Do you mind me asking how you went about getting the diagnosis?
I unfortunately had to go the private route (ADHDdoc) because when I queried about being referred for public assessment from my GP she told me it's not even worth trying the waiting lists are so long.
Interesting, thanks for replying!
Pick a thing. Promise yourself to do it for a month. Then move on to the next month and add a new thing, adapt the previous months thing based on what you have learned about yourself and what you gain from the habit. This has helped me drop sugar from coffee, do 10000 steps a day etc. It’s a good way of building habits.
Let us know what you do and what works for you
If stopping is proving difficult, try to pace it out with a pint of water, if peer pressures your problem drag out that drink of water.
I find as long as you've got a glass in your hand people go easier on you
I definitely feel better physically and mentally from sticking to a routine, whether it’s exercising, healthy eating or building a good evening/sleep routine. The thing that benefits me the most though is understanding that I will not do all of these things every single day, and being kind to myself when I don’t. If I have a day where I just really don’t want to do a workout I’m okay with that because I know missing a workout for one day is not going to set me back, and having that kind of mindset made me feel good about going back to my next class if that makes sense. If I beat myself up over missing a workout class even though I knew I really needed to rest it would make it harder to go back to the rest one because in my mind I would be losing progress and that’s just not how it works.
For me, changing gym made a big difference. I went from a big mainstream gym where everyone’s doing their own thing to a much smaller, PT led gym. You feel like you have to show up, which makes it easier to keep going even when life inevitably gets in the way.
The hardest part of new habits is actually forming the habit. Once you’re in it I think you become much more aware of the benefits- of the downsides if you skip- and it’s much easier to maintain.
One year when I was in college I ended up watching loads of WWE and thought man I want to be strong. Got a set of weights, made a WWE playlist, ended up doing it pretty much every day for half an hour. My arms were jacked 🤣 and I did feel really strong. I felt good and probably the most confident I ever have.
Once I was in the habit it just became part of my day. Come home, do the weights. I ended up doing the J1 and completely fell out of it and then various injuries and other nonsense have conspired to stop me getting back to it with any regularity.
It’s something I still want to get back to because it did feel so good and really felt like I achieved something- it’s usually my go-to to motivate myself for other things now. ‘Remember that time you had an amazing back and arms and were hefting really heavy things and people were shocked? You can do this!’ 😂
I teach and have a fairly substantial commute and am just physically exhausted by the time I get home. Got a treadmill so I didn’t have the excuse of it raining outside to avoid walking. In the summer I get out of bed, do the treadmill. Every morning before I have a chance to come up with an excuse or talk myself out of it. During the work year I can’t do it in the mornings (the noise, showering, I’m a terrible sleeper and can’t sacrifice another hour in the morning etc) but in the afternoons there are always things cropping up that stop me- or that I allow to stop me.
And it’s annoying because I 100% feel better when I’m doing it. Joints are less achy, I sleep better, peri isn’t as bad.
Every time I have a run of getting in a habit- even if it’s just 3 or 4 times a year I end up getting an injury or an illness (occupational hazard) that knocks me out of it again.
I think what might help is focus on one thing. You have three things you want to accomplish, I always decide ‘treadmill everyday plus some other random goal’. Pick the one that’s most important to you or the one you feel you’ll get the most immediate reward from as that will help stay motivated. The other two can be things you’ll do as much as you can but pick the one thing to be your main focus and a version of it that’s relatively achievable. When I want to get back into the treadmill I’ll lie to myself and say ‘look just 10 minutes, that’s doable’, and then when I’m at 10 be like ‘ah sure I might as well get the mile done’ and then ‘ah might as well finish on a nice round number like 15’ and usually 20 minutes have passed easily. You get that little ‘accomplished’ buzz for meeting that very meetable target and then can use it to keep going- whether that’s longer at one thing or ‘well I got the gym done might as well meal prep’.
If I was you I’d probably start with meal prep- it will end up saving you time, so might be easier to keep going to the gym, and if you’re focusing on healthy meals and fuelling yourself you’ll feel better and likely want to go to the gym.
Two things I am incredibly consistent/disciplined on that 100% improve my life are very small but have a really marked impact on my day- I always have all of my clothes, including socks and shoes, laid out the night before, and follow the exact same routine every work morning that has me up and out the door in 18 minutes. Means no stress or rush in my mornings, means consistency, means calm, and means not having to devote mental energy I do not have in the mornings to menial things. Absolutely a positive in my life.
I focused on improving sleep and everything else improved around it, so maybe don't put yourself under pressure to get all three perfect and just do one of them really well and see how you start to feel. You might naturally start being more disciplined with exercise because you sleep better those nights, and then after consistently decent sleep, eating healthy is so much easier. I can't meal prep much because it bores me and my freezer's too small, but I was able to get on board with planning groceries and chopping veg in advance so that it was all half done and that's about as close as I'll get. Once I realised that even half arsing one or two good habits would be better than none, they became very easy to stick with. I always thought it felt like so much more than that for some reason.