Moving to a new place always means shaking daily routine. Even though it may seem uncomfortable at first, the opportunity to start a new life is usually exciting. According to scientists, the fresh start period might be a perfect time to change your habits. They found out that almost 40 percent of people have changed their habits after a move.
However, this period of change lasts about three months. After that, the possibility to break bad habits considerably decreases. Therefore, make a plan and write down up to three habits that you want to change. For that purpose, you may want to apply some of the tips that your local moving company from New Haven, Connecticut, shares with you. They may help you experience moving as the best time to change your habits.
Identify triggers that cause bad habits
Bad or good, your habits usually begin with some triggers. The easiest way to change your habit is to remove triggers. No trigger—no bad habit. To understand what the triggers are and how they can activate a habit, let’s look at this example. You might struggle with smoking habit and your trigger might be a cup of coffee. Whenever you are about to drink your morning coffee, you immediately may look for cigarettes. In this way, a cup of coffee becomes your trigger. It happens because you’ve learned by habitual action to link these two things together.
Nevertheless, removing triggers is not that simple. It is because the underlying causes of your bad habits are usually cravings. For someone, it may stem from boredom, for others from stress, loneliness, impatience, etc. Because of that, identify your triggers and find out what uncomfortable emotions you want to avoid. Next time, when you notice a trigger, you may want to remind yourself that it’s boredom that needs that fix. Now, when you’ve acknowledged your emotions, you’ll be able to think about options on how to tolerate your boring situation and take some action steps to change it.
Set up new triggers
When you move to a new location, your environment is changing. For you, it’s a perfect opportunity to set up new triggers and activate healthy habits. With the change of environment, many of your old triggers will disappear. This way, you’ll be free to establish a new healthy routine.
For example, when you wake up in the morning, your first thing might be to drink coffee. If you want to let go of drinking coffee and start drinking fresh juice instead, identify what you automatically do before you make a cup of coffee. You may want to use your new kitchen arrangement to remove the trigger for coffee and drink fresh juice first thing in the morning. Your coffee trigger—your old kitchen—has already disappeared. Thus, changing just your kitchen environment may help you set up a new trigger and establish a better habit.
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Set realistic expectations
Many people fail to establish good habits because they expect to accomplish too much and too soon. Sometimes, they may experience initial success, but after a while, they usually give up because it’s hard to live up to that standard. Moreover, they feel bad because they’ve missed a chance to reach that standard and cultivate a good habit.
To avoid this pitfall, you may start small and set up realistic goals that you may easily achieve. Begin with simple steps and then increase activity on that goal over time. As a result, you’ll most likely feel good about yourself, your confidence will increase, and you’ll keep your habit for a long time because your overall feelings are positive.
Track your progress
The hardest part of changing habits is maintaining persistence. You want to be sure that you do a new action repeatedly. It’s only through repetition that the activity you select may turn into a habit. The thing is—bad habits don’t need lots of effort, while good ones need your full engagement and devotion.
The best way to stay on track is to write down your results whenever you complete your action. For that purpose, use a blank paper and attach it to the fridge. This way, you may take a look at the results whenever approaching the fridge. Reminding yourself of the results is motivating because it shows your progress.
Even if you skip doing the activity on your bad days, you’ll still be able to see the advancement. After a month, you’ll accumulate a certain number of repetitive actions and that’ll lead further to more action. It forms a so-called chain of events. And, that’s your goal—when you create a chain, it’ll be hard to break it.
If your forthcoming move is nearing, you may want to consult our professional movers from New Haven, Connecticut, for advice or a quote.