WEEK 3 GOAL: Make exercise a daily habit
For week 3 of the Challenge, we want you to transform into a cute little gym rat! Gym rats aren’t super-driven creatures who don’t know what lazy means. No, they’re just ordinary men and women that one day made a decision to be better. If you’re at that point in your life and are ready to commit to a healthier lifestyle, here’s what you should do to make exercise a daily habit.
How Habits Are Formed
Do you remember when you were a child, and your mother kept telling you to brush your teeth before bed? Through repetition, that action of brushing your teeth became a habit, and now you brush your teeth without even thinking about it.
Habits emerge because our brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort. So if you fit exercise between two other daily learned behaviors that happen automatically, such as waking up and taking a shower, the chance of making exercise a daily habit increases significantly.
How Long Does It Take To Form A Habit
Acquiring a new habit can be a difficult and long process, but if you’re always counting on motivation to help you get to the gym, it’s just not going to happen. The truth is that nobody is that motivated.
If you want to make exercise a daily habit, you have to force yourself to exercise for a few weeks until it becomes an automatic behavior. Once it’s part of your daily routine, it’s going to be something you start craving and looking forward to.
In the beginning, the most important thing is to develop the ritual, so start small with maybe just 1 round of your daily workout. Focus on the habit first and the results later.
Find a time slot that’s between two daily activities, and exercise every day no matter what. If you stay strong, you will eventually get there. And don’t get discouraged if it takes more than a month. The number of days for habit formation varies wildly. It can range from 3 weeks to almost a year. So persistence is key!