By writing this blog post, am I putting myself out there as an expert on making daily habits? Definitely not. The title of my blog is “His Life Leaner” because I am always learning. I write posts that bring you along on my journey so we can learn together. With that out of the way, let’s take a look at how we can make daily habits that stick.
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There are certain daily habits with which I have been successful. For instance, I’ve achieved my goal of exercising daily. If you want to know my unconventional way of multi-tasking exercise see this post. Still, there are other practices I’d like to adopt.
Developing Daily Habit Inspiration
I got some inspiration on developing daily habits from the YouTube Channel Clutterbug. If you like organizing videos and have never watched Cass, you will enjoy her. She has a great sense of humor and relays funny stories at the end of her videos (though be forewarned if you have little ones around, she will let out a choice word from time to time. In addition, she will warn you ahead of time, but sometimes her stories are a bit off color.)
In one of her videos, Cass described her use of a “daily dozen” list. On the list, she put 12 simple things she wants to make sure she does everyday. These are things that on their own are small, but cumulatively are life changing.
My version of the daily dozen
I liked the concept of a daily dozen list but, call me an underachiever, 12 items is too many for me. I know I would not remember to do all 12 (even with a list) and would get frustrated. How about a “top ten” list I asked myself. Nope, too many.
You may think this is sad, but I think this is practical. Instead of a daily dozen, I came up with the “faithful five.”
What to put on the list
Like the daily dozen, I would put simple things on my faithful five list. The items would be easy to do, but things I needed to be reminded to do.
This is what I plan to put on my list:
1. Drink 64 ounces of water a day
It’s ridiculous that I have to put this on my list. I like water. In fact, water is about the only beverage I consume. So why does it need to be on my faithful five? It’s because I forget to drink water when it’s not a meal time.
To help me out, I’m going to invest in one of these bottles
2. Be faithful to my daily Bible reading program
I read the Bible to my kids every morning, but I have been trying to read the Bible in a year on my own. I use the Discipleship Journal reading program which guides you into reading from four different places in the Bible every day. By installing the app on my phone I thought I could easily keep up with the reading. Right, so…here are my stats: I am currently 11 days behind on my Old Testament, 9 days behind in wisdom books, 9 days behind in the gospels, and 12 days behind in the epistles. Yikes, that looks even worse as I type it out.
3. Take my vitamins and supplements
Again, why do I have this on my list when it should be so easy to do? Take them at meals to make it much easier, Einstein, you may say. The problem is that, at least with the first two meals of the day, I eat at different times. Since I have been intermittent fasting, I adjust my meals according to the last meal I had the day before. Still, I need to make the habit of faithfully taking my vitamins (I have an iron deficiency and so need the daily dose of iron included in my vitamins).
If you’re interested in a great daily vitamin, this is what I take:
4. Check all my email accounts
Can I just take this opportunity now to apologize to anyone who has emailed me via the contact form on this blog? I check my personal email faithfully, but not my blog email nor my other two email accounts. By the way, if you’re a subscriber, I’ll give you another email account where you can reach me. Yes, I will indeed try to check that one more often as well.
Why do I have so many you ask? Well, my husband and I share two of them. Another is for blog related emails, and the fourth is the actual blog email. It would really only take a short amount of time to check each if I did it daily. When I don’t, it becomes a daunting task to get through all the messages.
5. Compliment each of my kids once a day
I’m really good at giving my kids reminders and reprimands. Positive comments flow pretty freely as well, but that is not the same as giving compliments. A compliment is not necessarily tied to something your kids do correctly or in obedience to you. It’s something kind you say, just because. I have some pretty great kids, they should be reminded of that daily.
How to make daily habits stick
Okay, so now we all have our faithful five. How do we make them stick? I think these are the keys to success:
1. Make them simple
Cass covered this in her video. The tasks on your list need to be simple so they can be readily attainable. You can count yourself successful right away if you complete your list at the end of the day.
2. If you want to develop a “harder habit,” break it down into small steps
Say you want to put on your list, “Lose weight.” Whoa, that’s way more complex than “take your vitamins.” You can still use the faithful five concept with a more involved habit you want to form. If you want to lose weight for example, your faithful five may look like this:
- Stop eating by 8:30pm. Don’t eat anything until the next morning for breakfast.
- Take a walk. If you can’t get outside, take an inside walk. You can find a number of walking workouts on my favorite You Tube channels.
- Use a smaller plate for meals.
- Don’t go back for seconds on meals.
- Drink more water.
If you accomplish one of those items on the list before the others, make a new goal and keep the others. Rewrite your list to reflect the change.
3. Don’t give up if you fail.
Developing good habits takes time and persistence. Give yourself a pat on the back even if you’ve only accomplished a few of the items on your list. Keep it up.
4. Share your list with an accountability partner
If you use my printable, you get two lists on one sheet of paper. Fill out both and give one to a friend, and have her do the same. That way you can check up on each other to see how the other is doing.
5. Tweak your list as needed
In the weight loss scenario I described above, you can change around your list if you are more successful with some habits than others. Or you may decide something else is a higher priority so you swap items on your list. Feel free to tweak as needed to make yourself successful.
Free Faithful Five printable
I made this printable to be used as a daily reminder of my faithful five. Being a thrifty person, I made it in black and white to save on ink. As you can see, I also created it in two different designs. Since they are half sheets, they should be easy to post on a mirror, or inside a cabinet, or in a planner, or wherever you would see it throughout the day. You can download your list by signing up on the form below. If you have gmail, please check in your “promotions” file to confirm your subscription if you don’t see it in your inbox.
What would you put on your faithful five list? I would love to hear your thoughts. And if you email me, I promise to email back. Hopefully it will be in a timely manner!