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Our habits exist for a very specific reason: rote thinking and automated behavior gets us through the day. There’s just not enough space in our heads to make new choices everyday on everything we do (imagine having to rethink and enforce a new way of brushing your teeth, or concentrating on how to walk the dog or how to get dressed ever day- it would be exhausting). So habits by their nature are resilient- they are designed NOT to be broken- to just keep on going and going.
We have limited brainspace available to enforce change in our lives- to be successful in behavior change, we have to strive to create new, replacement habits as soon as possible, so that those new, desired behaviors become rote and take the place of old ones.
So. How do you make the change? Sometimes it seems that we need massive, rapid and parallel behavior shifts in a lot of areas- but thinking that way gets you nowhere- it's just too overwhelming to do all of that at once. We're planning for success here- a habit shift in one area- then move onto another.
The first step is to pick one thing you'll focus on- and just let the others go for a while, while you make the new habit replace the old. This could take from 3 weeks to 6 months or even longer, depending on how hard of a change it is to make, how ingrained the current habit is.
What's the one habit you want to focus on for the next couple of weeks? (We hope it’s something green. What about something as simple as "Don't Waste Food"? There's something that immediately impacts the planet- you buy less, throw away less, and compost whatever is left over- huge shadow reduction in water and energy use) Or maybe it's the tried and true intention: exercise more, or meditate more. Fine. Just promise me you won't add anything else to your list until you've incorporated one positive replacement habit into your daily routine.
Be kind to yourself in the process, applauding the changes and forgiving the relapses.
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