Habit Tracking Tips to Redefine your MID-YEAR Goals and Intentions | Inspired Moment

Habit Tracking Tips to Redefine your mid-year Goals and Intentions

In todays Inspired Moment we're talking all about Habit Tracking and habit stacking! Just small little habits you can check in with that are helping you reach your goals and intentions. 

Tracking your habits can boost your chances of success by providing insights into your progress, helping you stay motivated, and allowing you to adjust if you need to.

Habit Tracking Tips:

• Keep it simple - use your phone note section, grab an old notebook or just add to your daily journaling practice.
• Check in with what is easy to achieve and where feels challenging.
• Be specific to keep habits easy to achieve.
• Celebrate you wins!

Examples of habits you might like to track:
Health: Exercise, drink water, meal prep, incorporating whole foods.
Productivity: Plan the day, read a book, work on a project.
Self-Care: Meditate, journal, take a bath, book a sauna.
Finance: Track expenses, save money, review budget.
Learning: Do a course, up-level a skill, read and learn about something that inspires you.

Transcript

Elise: Are you ready for the ultimate glow up? Hey there beauty. I'm Elise, your go to gal for all things health, wellness, home and style. As a mum of three and self confessed lifestyle addict, I'm here to share the best hacks, tips and inspiration to elevate your life. Welcome to inspired to be your fave catch up with a girlfriend where you'll leave every episode with a pep in your step and a sparkle in your eye. Let's be inspired together. Hello my loves. Happy Monday. Welcome back to this Monday mini inspired moment episode. Today I wanted to talk to something that I am really trying to focus on at the moment and I don't know if it's because it's the middle of the year. There's a lot going around about like a mid year reset, a mid year looking at what we've achieved or what we haven't compared to back when we created our goals or intentions for the year. Back in January 1 of all. Can you believe it? Can you believe it's the middle of the year? I absolutely cannot. Except for that it's winter. That is my only telltale sign that I'm like, oh, we're in the middle of the year. Anyways, I feel like time is just going so fast at the moment and if you're a busy mom, you're working, you're just balancing all the things, then you probably have let go of your habits or you don't even realize that you've let go of your habits. So that is what today's little inspired moment is all about. It's all about habit tracking and how we can check in with ourselves to make sure that we're staying on track, to make sure that we're habits stacking. And when I say habits, I just mean tiny little things. Because you get it. If you're a mom, you are lacking time. And that's not to say that you can't make time, you definitely can. I feel like that is one of the biggest tips I can share with you is that there is always more time. For example, for me, I know that if I want to get in a walk in the morning, I need to get up at like 05:15 and it is dark when I first go and sometimes that's hard, but at least I'm doing it before the kids get up. Your routine might look a little bit different where you cannot do mornings, but maybe you can do evenings. And I really do think that you need to look at the time in your day and maybe just have a little bit of a kick in the *** that yes, there actually is time. Some evenings you probably just crash on the lounge at 08:00 and stare at your phone or the tv for 2 hours straight. And yes, that is something that is definitely helpful. Sometimes we just need to stare blankly. But I will say imagine if you just dedicated half an hour each night before you did that to do something for you or something that is on your goals or intentions list over the course of a week. That's almost 3 hours that you have given back to yourself. So when I say habit tracking and habit stacking, I just mean little things that you can keep track of. First of all, if you are someone that made a vision board back in January, or maybe you just took down some notes in your phone of some things that you wanted to achieve this year, now is your reminder to go back and look over them. This will do two things. One, it will remind you and set you back on track if maybe you've lost sight of it. Or two, it might allow you to celebrate your wins and see how far you've come. One of my goals for this year was to read more books. I saved some photos on my vision board on Pinterest of books and that is something that I have been doing and I'm really proud of myself for so just celebrating that within myself and like saying go girl, yes, you did it. And keep on top of that because you know that it felt good. So what are yours? Take a moment, just think about them. Something I did recently was just go to big w and buy a really cute little notebook. Just like a Spirax notebook but it's pink, it's just got lined pages, it's got no prompts or anything in it. And I'm just finding it really helpful to carry around with me because I love like that pen to paper. So if you've got a spare notebook lying around, it might be helpful to bring that out right now so you can just take notes. And also if you want to focus on habit tracking, maybe just for the next few weeks to see where you're really showing up for yourself and be able to reflect back on that, then that could be really helpful. You may or may not be a journaling person. Some people love it, some people don't. If you have a journal, maybe you could start habit tracking within your journal, but otherwise you could even do it within the notes section of your phone or just a real cheap little notebook. You don't necessarily have to get fancy apps or go out and buy a specific journal to track your habits, you can just do it really simply. One of the most effective things about tracking your habits is that it's going to give you higher chance of success, because it's going to provide you insights into your progress and also help you stay motivated and see where you're really happy showing up. And maybe even some places that you're really struggling with. You might do it as simply as just making a little bullet journal, which could be just writing a list of all of the habits that you would like to do each day. And these could be simple things like drink two litres of water, do half an hour of movement, eat a healthy lunch. Maybe you really struggle with lunch. You're not preparing your meals and you're just grabbing something quick and easy on the go. Or maybe you're skipping meals. So once you've written your little list, you can write that every day and then just check off at the end of the day which ones you've actioned and the ones that you haven't actioned. Just take a moment to reflect and go, how come I didn't do that today? Was it because I felt busy? I felt tired, I didn't have enough time? How can I change tomorrow to fit it in? Can I add half an hour in at some point in the day to get that half an hour movement in? Can I combine it with I'm catching up with a friend? Maybe instead of sitting at the cafe, we can actually walk for the half an hour. While we're catching up, can I go to bed half an hour earlier so that I can read those ten pages of my book? I also want to mention that when you're noting down your habits, make sure they're really specific because this makes them more easily achievable. So, for example, instead of saying just exercise more as one of your goals, you might be saying exercise for 30 minutes or move for 30 minutes each day. Or maybe your goal back at the beginning of the year was to do three gym classes a week. For example, mine at the moment is to do four reformer Pilates classes a week. So what I have been doing each Sunday is mapping out what my week looks like and where can I fit those four reformer classes in. And guys, half the time I do not want to go. I'll wake up and be like, oh, I don't want to go. And there's a benefit in the fact that you get charged if you cancel at the last minute because it definitely makes you show up. But 100% after I get there, I love it. I feel so much better and for me, it's not even so much about the movement, it's more about the mindset. And when I finish an exercise class, I feel so good. I also feel good because I've shown up for myself. And that is also what this habit tracking is about. It's seeing where you show up for yourself. You deserve it. Please stop self sabotaging like you need to show up for yourself. We all have those little moments where we sit back and it's almost like you're sitting on a ledge or you're sitting at a fence and you're like, oh, I can't be bothered. But you know what? Jump over that fence, go through that door, just give yourself a little kick and do it. It's a little mini habit. It's not a huge thing. But you know what? It's going to lead to a better long term habit and one that's more sustainable. If you are seeing that you're consistently missing a habit or it's something that you're not showing up to, maybe it's a goal that is too big for you. And for now, now that change is just too much. So how can you reduce it? How can you make it into a smaller goal, a smaller habit that is achievable for you? Because what will happen is, for example, if it's something that's going to take 30 minutes and you're never getting to it, can you reduce it to be 15 minutes? It will feel a lot less overwhelming and maybe in a few weeks you'll feel like that 15 minutes is easy. Now I can up it to 30 minutes. So just kind of reflect on where you're not showing up. Maybe two liters of water for you is too much. Start with a litre and then in a week you can up it to two. So I hope that this inspires you to just track your habits this week and really do a check in. This mid year check in, I'm going to be doing it too. Please come on over and send me a voice or say hi on Insta if you need some motivation. Before I go, I just wanted to give you some examples of habits that you could track in case you're just feeling stuck and you don't really know where to start. I would also suggest going on over to Pinterest and just creating like a little mid year vision board. You can literally just write in things that inspire you. So, for example, I write in like, reformer, pilates, aesthetic book, aesthetic, green smoothies, pre prepared meals, things like that. And then it just gives you like this visual place where you can go to feel inspired when you're not feeling really on top of getting through those habits. But some examples of ones that you might like to track is in health, exercise, drinking water, taking supplements, or eating whole nourishing foods. Productivity might be planning the day, writing your to do lists each night, reading a book or working on like a project that you've got going on or a deadline at work, self care, things like journaling, taking little breaks, meditating, or even just having a bath once a week, going to that sauna, those type of things. Finance is sort of more about tracking your expenses. How can you review your budget or save money? And learning? What are you learning at the moment? Are you studying? Are you doing a course? Is there a skill that you want to practice more? Are you reading? You know? Do you want to spend 20 minutes watching a YouTube video each night to like, uplevel yourself in motivation? So those are some examples of habits that you might like to start tracking to really set you back on track for the goals and intentions that you set back in January. And just remember, you've still got six months of this year. Remember how fast those first six months went. That's what you've got left of this year. Time is of the essence. Go for it, girlfriend. You've got this. We're all in together and let's just be motivated to kick our goals. Thanks for listening to this episode of inspired to be. I hope you're feeling motivated and ready to take on your day. If you enjoyed our chat today, please take a moment to leave a review and share the love. Your feedback means the world to me and helps me reach more amazing girlies just like you. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Until next time, stay inspired and of course, keep shining bright.