Forming good or new habits takes time but, sometimes, you also need the space to be able to do them. Our low cost storage Swindon is here to help. 

The habits we take part in, on a day-to-day basis, shape who we are. Whether we have good habits or bad habits can determine whether we have a happy, healthy life or an unhappy, unhealthy life. 

But, forming new habits is hard and it takes time. Leaving behind bad habits can be even harder. Within this article, we will offer some advice about how to form some good habits and let you know how low cost storage Swindon will help. 

What Is Considered A ‘Habit’? 

The definition of a habit is: 

Something that you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it. 

This could be something that betters you and your life or it could be something harmful, either way it would be considered a ‘habit’. A good habit will help you reach your goals, both personally and professionally, but, as habits are driven by reward seeking mechanisms in our brains, they can often be triggered by something very specific. This could be always putting on your seatbelt when you get into a car or craving a cigarette when you are stressed. 

Why Do You Have Habits? 

Our brains strive for efficiency by creating habits, allowing us to complete tasks without wasting time thinking about them. This can have both positive and negative results.

Positive habits, like drinking a green smoothie daily for better health or automatically knowing how to drive, benefit our lives.

However, negative habits, like biting your nails during work meetings or neglecting to brush your teeth after eating, can have detrimental effects on our health and well-being.

How Do We Form Habits? 

Habit-forming is the process in which behaviors become automatic. It can be an intentional process, or it can happen unplanned. 

For example, you were likely taught to wash your hands as a child after going to the toilet. And after a while, washing your hands became an automatic habit. It wasn’t intentional – it happened after lots of repetition. Choosing to replace your nightly glass of wine with a cup of tea, on the other hand, would be an intentional process. 

There is no set amount of time for how long it can take habits to form. “Do something for 30 days and you’ll do it forever” may be true for some people but, for many of us, it takes a lot longer than 30 days. Some of us may also struggle to keep habits due to being neurodivergent, particularly people with ADHD and those who are autistic. 

It is important that you remain kind and compassionate with yourself when forming new habits because beating yourself about not forming habits quick enough will only result in you losing motivation to try and form them. 

Building Good Habits And Breaking Bad Ones

When you are trying to eliminate bad habits and replace them with good habits, it will take time. There are some ways that you can help yourself and, within this section, we will go through some of the steps. 

Eliminate Triggers 

If you want to break bad habits, identify the triggers – the people, places and activities – that lead to them and change how you respond to them. 

For example, if you have a shopping addiction, avoid going to a shopping centre or block certain websites on your phone. If you’re trying to stop smoking, stay inside when your friends go out for a smoke break.

Swap Out Bad For Good

Habits are formed by our brains seeking reward so a good way to break bad habits and form good ones is to think about how the bad habit makes you feel and think of a good habit that brings about the same feeling. 

For example, you are stressed and want to feel relaxed so you smoke a cigarette. A nice soak in the bath has the same relaxing effect so swap the cigarette for the promise of a nice soak in the bath when you get home. 

Make A Bad Habit More Difficult 

Habits can often be formed because the behaviour is easy to engage in. The path of least resistance can be the easiest to follow which is why we often find bad habits easier to keep. 

If you make it difficult to do a bad habit then you will stop doing it. For example, if you have a glass of wine after work each day, stop buying bottles of wine. If, when you get home, the only way you can have your glass of wine is to go back out to the shops, you are less likely to engage in the behaviour. 

Make Space For Healthy Routine With Low Cost Storage Swindon 

Building good habits comes down to making the choice to do them and the choice being easier to make. It is a good idea to integrate healthy and good habits into your life by scheduling them into your day but you must allow for some ease. 

For some example, if you want to be more physically active so you are healthier, you could plan on doing more exercise. This must be able to fit around your day-to-day life. An easier way to do this would be to workout from home. Our low cost storage Swindon will help you to make space for you to workout with ease. 

A habit you want to break may be that you want less clutter in your home. Our low cost storage Swindon will help you with this too. 

Keep Track Of Your New Good Habits 

To keep yourself motivated, it is a good idea to have some way of keeping track of your progress. Seeing progress is always a major motivator. 

You can easily keep track of your progress through a spreadsheet or habit tracker. This could be on your computer, drawn out in a notebook or stuck on your mirror or wall. Just put it somewhere that you remember to fill it in daily and where you can see your progress. 

Create Good Habits With Low Cost Storage Swindon

Good habits can be hard to form and bad habits can be hard to break. It is really important that you allow yourself time and compassion to remove the bad habits and form the good ones. 

There are many ways that you can help yourself such as eliminating triggers, swapping out bad habits for good ones and making bad habits more difficult. You should also keep track of your new habits because this will keep you motivated. If you need to make space for your good habits, such as working out from home, our low cost storage Swindon is here to help. 

We hope you have found our article helpful. If you would like to know more about our low cost storage Swindon, please give us a call on: 01793 267 585 or click here.