Habit Harmony: Crafting Routines that Stick

Can you really transform your daily routines into better habits?

Embark on a journey with me, Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco, as we explore the exciting and sometimes challenging process of habit formation. Drawing from my personal experiences and insights, I'll share the steps you need to take to identify, modify, and integrate positive habits into your life, inspired by the article "Creating Healthy Habits" from the National Institute of Health. From better eating and exercise habits to incorporating writing, journaling, meditation, and prayer, we’ll discuss how to make these changes stick, even when life throws you curveballs.

In this episode of the Self-Growth Train, you’ll discover the importance of understanding your current routines before making any changes. I’ll share my own journey of figuring out a more structured daily routine, and we’ll acknowledge the reality that setbacks and off days are part of the process. This episode is your guide to embracing the continuous journey of self-growth, filled with opportunities to evolve and improve. So, fasten your seatbelts and get ready to transform your habits one step at a time! Well, until the next stop dear passengers, safe travels!

Resource Used Today
Creating Healthy Habits 

Transcript

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 0:07

Hello, my dear passengers, and welcome aboard the Self-Growth Train, a podcast that combines personal stories, opinions and research in order to better guide you through your self-growth journey. My name is Frances Mari Rivera Pacheco and I am your tour guide. Your tour guide. First, I want to say thank you for tuning back into the podcast. I am so excited because we are at the end of August, which means that pretty soon it's going to be October. And I am so excited because, yes, I know that there's September in between, but October is my favorite month of the year and I'm just so excited that we're getting closer and closer to it. And yeah, that is the update of today. It's just that I'm very excited that we are one month away from my favorite month of the year, which is October. Well, my dear passengers, it's time for you to buckle up your seatbelts as we head into our first topic of the day, and that is the topic of the day.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 1:05

Today's topic is habits. Habits are defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as the usual way of a person behaving, which means that it's that routine that you do without even realizing that you're doing. It's when you wake up, you go, brush your teeth, brush your hair, take a shower and then, after that, get dressed and ready for the day. But can your routines be changed, or can you form better habits if you really wanted to? Um duh, of course you can. That is the beauty of being human we get to grow and we get to evolve however we want. But how exactly can we change the habits that we currently have into the habits that we want? For today's episode, the resource that I will be using is an article titled Creating Healthy Habits from the National Institute of Health.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 1:52

The first step is to know what your current habits and routine looks like. I mean, before you're able to change anything, you need to know what you want to change, right? So in my case, I know kind of what my routine looks like every single day, and the reality is that I don't have a set routine, which is why I want to change that. For me, when I wake up, I know exactly what I'm going to do from the moment that I wake up to the moment that I leave the door. Once I leave the door, that's where things get tricky. So in order to do this, I want to make sure that I know what I usually do, which can be anywhere from going to the gym very early in the morning or heading straight to work because I'm running late or, who knows, maybe I have a doctor's appointment that day.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 2:39

Once you know what your routine looks like, you need to start figuring out what habits you want to incorporate. In my case, I want to incorporate better eating habits and also exercise habits. I also want to incorporate writing, because I'm still writing my book. I also want to incorporate journaling because I think it is important to self-reflect on a daily basis, and I also want to incorporate meditation and prayer because I think those are super necessary in order to keep my spiritual aspect alive and well taken care of. But I only have 24 hours in the day and not every day looks the same, which brings us to the third step. We have to incorporate these habits into our life. Now I need to make a note here, because I think it's very important Just because you want to introduce new habits into your routine, it doesn't mean that it's going to go perfect from the get-go.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 3:33

I mean maybe it's going to go perfect for you, but I'm going to tell you right now I've done this quite a lot of times and never has it gone 100% perfect on the first try, okay. So because of this, I want you to keep in mind that it is totally, totally normal for you to quote unquote fail whenever you're starting to incorporate new habits into your life. Why? Because you have been used to a specific routine this whole time that now, introducing something new, it's kind of confusing or it can be a little overwhelming at times or, quite honestly, you might just not have the time to incorporate that habit every single day. Why? Because, again, we don't know what our schedules look like every single day and there might be things that pop up like a new deadline at a job or God forbid like a family emergency or something else that might take you off the track. But that's okay, because if you go in knowing that there is a possibility of failure and that it is totally okay, you're going to have way more grace with yourself and you're also going to have way more success because you're going to keep at it and you're going to keep trying because you know that it is possible, even if you don't get it on the first try. And again, my dear passengers, I'm going to mention step four and step five. I'm going to re-mention them, actually, because I just forgot to say they were step four and step five. But step four is to have grace with yourself and step five is to stay on track. Now, this is very important.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 5:05

Over the summer, right? I decided that I wanted to go to the gym every single day for 30 minutes. Every single day for 30 minutes, okay. And because I was so rigid in my goal, I lost the opportunity of just doing some other activity for 30 minutes and still exercising, because in my head I was like, well, that doesn't count, it doesn't count. I didn't go to the gym, I just swam for 20 minutes or I just walked for 30 minutes, but that doesn't count, I didn't go to the gym. No, my dear passengers, you have to have grace with yourself and you have to stay on track. By continuing to move my body and exercising, I was achieving my goal. Yeah, it didn't look 100% exactly how I wanted, but guess what? I was still getting all of the benefits from it. So that actually taught me a lesson that when it comes to goal setting, especially when it comes to habits and routines, I need to be way more flexible and I need to be willing to adapt myself to the circumstances. And how can I still achieve what I want to do, even if it doesn't look 100% perfect. Well, my dear passenger, the time has come for the last stop of the day, that is, recap time.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 6:19

Today's episode discuss habits, which is simply an individual's usual way of behaving. We now know that in order to set new habits, you have to know what habits you currently have. After you find out this information, you're able to determine what habits you want to incorporate into your life. Then you get the chance to incorporate them into your daily, weekly, monthly, bi-weekly however you want life. Last but not least, you need to stay graceful with yourself and also stay on track. Why? Because just because we want to have new habits, it doesn't mean that we're going to get them perfect on the first try. But if you continue to work on it, you will definitely get that routine or those habits that you really really want.

Frances Marie Rivera Pacheco: 6:59

Remember, self-growth is an endless journey towards self-improvement. However, you don't ever have to do it alone. As your tour guide, my goal is to guide you with the best intentions and the best research available. Make sure to follow me on Instagram, facebook and TikTok at the Self-Growth Train Podcast, and to also follow the new website, theselfgrowthtrainpodcast. com. As always, all the resources used today have been added to the episode's description. Well, until the next stop, dear passengers. Safe travels, bye!