New Year, New You

Yet another opportunity to reinvent yourself, empower yourself and reclaim your energy. Lately I have been impressed by the power of self-discipline and routine in creating the life you want. Self-discipline?! Ugh. Hear me out.

We often have a very negative response to imposing self-discipline, possibly because we have previous failures in this area (anybody?) Self-discipline is a positive - you get to choose! No one is doing this to you, it’s your CHOICE.

And it gives you more power over your life. You being able to control your schedule, your activities and even your thoughts (rather than them controlling you) can give you a life you desire. Without self-discipline, all the bad habits and addictions are standing in your way.

So how do we drop the bad habits and create healthy ones?

The answer is dopamine. Dopamine is a feel-good reward chemical in your brain that motivates you to take action. Stimulate dopamine production and you create the motivation for any habit.

A habit is something we do automatically.

When a behavior becomes automatic, it eliminates drama. Life goes smoothly!

But, our feelings get in the way of making good habits…

Habits boil down to 3 easy steps:

• The cue/Trigger - Signals it is time to do the new behavior. Ex: Wanting a dog to sit. You say "sit" or use a hand signal to cue the behavior.  Cues can be sound, time of day, location, emotion, etc.

• New Behavior/Routine - New behavior happens because we want the reward.

• Reward - Research shows we need to reward ourselves within 2 minutes. This changes our brain chemicals - it gives us a shot of dopamine. Feels good! The reward fuses the cue and behavior reward.

There is an amazing podcast by Mel Robbins where she breaks down these 3 parts and shares how to consciously and easily create a sustainable habit.

I hope you enjoy reinventing yourself this year and empowering yourself with this simple habit-forming method.

Happy and Healthy New Year to You!

Jennifer