E128: How Healthy are Your Habits?

Whether or not you realize it, you have many habits in your day. But are those habits helping you, or are they hurting you? In today’s episode we bring awareness to what's working, what isn’t and some next steps to elevate our daily routines…

[1:09] Part One: Collecting the Data

The very first step to making any change is awareness. We need to know what current habits we have, and whether or not they are: beneficial, detrimental, or neutral. Let’s get started by creating a habit scorecard.

To do this you will need: a piece of paper or notebook and a writing utensil. You can also use the notes app on your phone if you prefer. I always recommend starting with the pen and paper because it’s a bit easier to evaluate and see the big picture than it would be to scroll along on your phone.

It’s important to remember that the purpose of this exercise is to bring awareness to your current daily routines, not to judge yourself for them. We will be evaluating the habit, which is separate from us at this time.

Here’s how the scorecard works: from the moment you wake up, you are going to write down a list of everything you do; every activity throughout your day until you go to bed at night.

When you’re writing your list, keep these three things in mind:

Be as detailed as possible. Don’t skip little habits, even if they seem insignificant, or you aren’t doing them every day. These are still very important.
Be honest. Not all of our habits are good ones; that’s okay. We’re doing this exercise so that we can understand our starting point.
This is a judgement-free zone. Even if your entire morning is stacked full of “bad habits” the point of the exercise is to collect information, not judge ourselves. You’re already making a positive impact on yourself and your life just by listening to this episode and taking action on your daily routines. You’ve got this!

Here’s a bonus part to the scorecard exercise: include mindset habits. These are our thoughts and thought patterns. For example, when you wake up in the morning your thoughts could be that you’re excited for the day. Or when you’re driving to work you’re thinking about how you’re already counting down the hours until you can drive back home after work.

E04: Your Mindset is a Habit

Use your habit scorecard every day for one whole week. Technically you can do this for one day, however you’ll collect more accurate data from seven full + consecutive days, especially if each day is different for you. At the very least I suggest making a scorecard for 2 weekend days, and 2 weekdays.

[4:12] Part Two: Evaluating the Data

Once you have your list of daily routines, it’s time to rate them.

Highlight with yellow, or put a + sign beside any “good habit.” A good habit is beneficial and improves your life. Examples: meditation, exercising, staying hydrated, flossing, etc.

Highlight with blue, or put a - sign beside any “bad habit.” A bad habit is detrimental and doesn’t solve problems in your life. Examples: Hitting snooze multiple times, checking instagram first thing in the morning, grabbing a sugary latte and snack on the drive to work, etc.

Don’t highlight, or put an = sign beside any “neutral habits.” A neutral habit is something that must be done. Examples: getting dressed, going to the bathroom, driving to work, etc.

Now remember that bonus part of the scorecard? Where we were recording our mindset patterns? Our neutral habits MUST BE DONE, but that doesn't always mean our thoughts are neutral also. As you are tracking your habits, notice if you have positive, negative, or neutral mindset/thoughts around these neutral habits (and your other habits). You might find that getting dressed in the morning is actually detrimental because you are wearing clothes that don’t fit you properly and negative self talk starts to come up. Or while you’re going to the bathroom you are reading the news on your phone and you’re experiencing some issues with digestion because you aren’t actually present or connected to your body.

I know this is getting pretty detailed, so if you’ve never brought awareness to your habits before, start with the simple scorecard with the daily actions.

If you’re interested in making more internal/mindset shifts, this is where you need to bring your attention to WHILE you’re doing certain activities.

Sometimes it helps to start simple with your scorecard for the first two days, and then get more detailed with your mindset the following two days and so on.

[6:29] Part Three: Using the Data

Once you’ve collected the information, take a look at your scorecards. What do you see? There are no right or wrong answers, but here are some examples of what you might find...

A balance of good and bad habits
More good habits in the beginning of the day, and bad habits in the evening
More habits than you thought you had

Look through everything and notice if there are any specific bad habits that you’d like to change. As always, start with ONE thing you’d like to work on at a time. Usually you’ll discover which habit you want to change pretty quickly while you’re tracking and evaluating.

As an example let’s say you’ve gotten in the habit of eating ice cream before bed. You rated this as a bad habit that you want to change. Instead of trying to eliminate this habit immediately, consider what you can replace this habit with, or how you can modify the habit.

For example: you are going to replace the ice cream with half a cup of fruit or a scoop of peanut butter, or a peppermint tea.

Or you will have half the serving you normally have of ice cream and without the extra toppings you add to it like m&ms and sprinkles. Then, perhaps you only have the ice cream if it’s before 8pm or only on weekends; limiting the habit to weekly instead of nightly. This could turn into a gradual elimination of the habit.

As you're building this new habit, it’s important to track it. The best trackers are automatic, like a step counter attached to your phone or watch. For our ice cream example we would have to track it manually. A suggestion I would have would be putting a calendar up on your freezer/fridge door and each time you DON’T go for the ice cream and reach your new goal/habit put a sticker or an X on the date. See if you can continue the chain of X’s without breaking it for more than two days in a row.

This will help you track your habit, and also help you see the progress you are making. You can also write WHY this new habit is important to you on the top of your calendar to remind you why you’ve decided to make this change. Perhaps you want to be healthier, or have better quality sleep.

Another way to support your new habit is to set up a habit trigger. This could be setting up your kettle, favourite mug, and a tea bag after you’ve cleaned up the dinner dishes so that it’s easier for you to make a tea versus a bowl of ice cream.

You can also let your family members, or roommate know you’re working on this new habit. Maybe ask them to check in with you, encourage you, or do the challenge with you!?

How you choose to take action on the information will be entirely up to you. When you’re creating an action plan, here are my best tips/practices:

Start with one habit you’d like to change/modify/adjust
Swap the habit versus eliminate it entirely
Track your new habit/progress either manually or automatically
Set up habit triggers to make the new healthy habit easier than the old bad habit
Tell a friend to help keep you accountable with your new habits

Your next immediate step is to start that habit score card! Get the pen and notebook ready right now and place it beside your bed so you can start listing your daily activities from the moment you wake up.

When you’re done you can send me a photo of your scorecard or tag me in a story/post on instagram @vallavignelife I’d love to see where you’re at with your experiment!

Podcast Host

Valerie LaVigne

Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!