When You Fall Into Old Habits, Here's How To Get Back On Track

You've been getting out of bed at 6 a.m. every day for the past few weeks, strolling into the kitchen, and preparing breakfast. You read while having breakfast, then write, and then exercise, perhaps going for a run, once you've finished. After that, you're ready to start your working day.

You weren't always this way; just a year ago, you were waking up at 9 a.m. on most days, eating a little breakfast, not exercising, and arriving at work half sleepy.

You wanted change in your life, you wanted to take control of you day and implement good habits that build up your strength, help you get more done and give you a sense of pride each and every day.

It wasn’t an easy ride to get there, a lot of mental obstacles perhaps, constant experimentation to your schedule to see what works best for you. But you did it and you have been living in a state of peace and accomplishment within your life.

However, recently you’ve noticed a few of your good habits slipping.

You’re going to be a little bit later each day making it more difficult to continue waking up at 6am. With waking up later you have less time to do everything you want to do so you skip your exercises that day, because one day can’t hurt right, but then one day turns into two and you have to muster more energy on the third day to do it.

You see yourself slipping into bad habits without realising it immediately, and you begin to feel that everything you worked for in building those good habits is wasted. You feel as though you are always going to screw it up no matter what so what is the point in trying again. In some way, you feel you will always self-sabotage your own success.

The above description is me. Today. And for the last few days.

You see, recently I started changing my routine so that I could design my life.

I went from waking up at 9am to 6am starts. In the morning I would have my breakfast and read for a bit (typically a personal development book) and then I would write as I had my one coffee of the day. I wouldn’t look at a screen until after an hour of being awake — usually pefect timing to start writing. Once that was done I would get up an exercise: a workout and then a 5K run. By 09:30/10:00 I was showered and ready to crack on with any work or tasks I had set that day. Later I would cook dinner, around 7pm, relax for a bit and then head to bed to read for about an hour (this time a fiction book), making sure I was getting to sleep between 10 and 11 so that I was able to get between 7 and 8 hours sleep. I also wouldn’t use any screen an hour before bed so that my eyes got a rest and hopefully my sleep quality would be higher.

With this routine I felt productive, I was able to achieve more, I was using my time in the morning learn and produce content, and I was using my evening to wind down and relax. It gave me a good rhythm.

But recently I have been waking up at around 07:30 and the first thing I do is switch on the TV because I want to watch the Olympics. But already I have lost an hour and a half from my morning schedule so I either have to drop something or my whole day gets pushed back.

The rest of the day goes as planned; just working on projects.

Until it gets to the evening.

Recently I have begun watching The Handmaid’s Tale. And though the show frustrates more than any show ever has, I can’t stop watching it. From going to watching one episode of a show in the evening to reduce my screen time and make sure I was creating more output that my input, I have gone to watching about 5 episodes an evening and finally putting away my screen at half 11 when my eyes are beyond tired and I already realise that my 6am start is out of the window.

I have begun slipping from my good habits into bad ones and I need to take a bit more control over my time/life once again if I want to return back to achieving what I was before.

In terms of habits within our life, though we work on building new habits to be the person we want to be, we must understand that, no matter how far we go, it is an easy step into our old ways.

But we must also remember that we did once step away from those bad habits and, for a while, lived our lives forming our good habits. If we could do it once, then we can do it again. That path is always there, but you have to want to get back on it and work at it.

Now that I’ve recognised a shift back into some old habits, I’m going to be making changes and return to building my good habits. I felt good when I was working on those good habits, I don’t feel good when I’m watching TV every night until 11:30, so I’m going to work at my habits so that I can feel good again.

These are the 5 things that I will be thinking about over the next few weeks as I work at returning to my good habits and building the life I want once again:

Don’t be hard on yourself

You could call yourself stupid, useless, worthless, no good, a failure. And when we fall back into bad habits, we can also fall into negative thought patterns, trapping us in a negative loop. So we need to think about our language, how we are talking to ourselves. If you slip back into a bad habit, it’s not the end of the world, you got out once and you can do it again, but be compassionate, don’t tell yourself off or call yourself stupid. If you were on a team project and you called a team member stupid and worthless do you think they’re going to want to work with you? Do you think they will produce very good work? No. We are our own team members, so speak to yourself in the way you would to encourage others. Because you need to encourage yourself. You need to know that you’ve got this, and a slip up won’t stop you, it was just a slip up and you know you can go back, but it all starts with how you treat yourself when you fall.

Keep moving forward

You have a desire for change, of course you do otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to build good habits into your life. But when you slip back into a bad habit it’s easy to stop trying and to say you’ve failed. But you haven’t failed, you’ve just approached an obstacle. You were on the path of improvement, and this is part of the process, so don’t say you’ve failed and give up. Embrace that you have fallen off path and then take a step forward, towards the path of improvement. It’s still there, you just have to keep moving forward to return there.

Don’t forget your why

We’ve established you have a desire for change. But why? Why do you want change in your life? Why do you wish those bad habits away and the good habits to be a part of your life? When you started building those good habits you most likely had a why. Why were you exercising most mornings? To become fit and healthy? There’s your why. Why were you writing every morning? To build your skill and side hustle? There’s you why? Behind everything we do there is a why we do it. So return to your why. Remember why you made changes in the first place, remember why you were building those good habits. Knowing your why will help return you to your path of improvement.

Be aware of your actions

Mindfulness and presence. Everything we do, we should be mindful of. Are we clicking ‘Next Episode’ and falling into a binge, or do we turn off the screen and pick up our book? Are we grabbing the carrots and hummus from the fridge, or is our hand going for the chocolate? Everything we do is a choice. Each of our actions is a choice. And we can choose to take actions that align with our good habits, or we can choose to take actions that align with our bad habits. We fall too easily into forgetting that we are in control of our actions, we have one biscuit and then another and another, but each biscuit we had was a choice of our actions. Instead, we need to be aware of each of our actions, as long as we are aware we understand that we are making the choices to what life we live, be that following our good habits or bad. Being aware means you can take back control and make the necessary steps back to the path of improvement.

Track your habits

Perhaps you started building your habits originally by tracking them, keeping you on the path, but as time goes on and we feel that the good habits are a part of us, we tend to forget about tracking them and instead focus on just doing them. And that’s fine, I certainly didn’t track my habits for some time. However, now that I have slipped back into bad habits, I know that tracking my habits for the next few weeks will help me get back to my good habits. By writing down all the habits you want to be practising in your life, you can then cross them off each day you do them. You play a bit of a game with yourself as you will want to have a full line of crosses, meaning you have practised that good habit that day, and the more crosses you have, the less likely you will want to break that — which spurs on the desire to keep the habit going. Habit tracking is a sure fire way to help get back on your path, and you can notice the way you are acting and what you are dedicating time to.

As you make your way back to working on your good habits, I would pay attention to the whole process. Perhaps the reason you slipped back into your bad habits is because your original new, good habits didn’t exactly work for you, so as you take those steps back, pay attention and adjust where necessary. You don’t need to go back to doing the exact same thing, but you can go back to a new routine which works for you.

Today, after waking up late and realising how far I’m falling back into my old habits, I am taking action to jump back to my good habits, the ones I chose and built into my life for a reason. I enjoyed the early starts, the productive mornings — I want those back, and I am the only one who can get them back, so I need to take action and make the necessary steps to do so.

If you want to live the life you desire, you need to realise that your choices are your own, you have control of your life and you are the only person who can take the actions into getting onto your desired path.

Today is the day I go back to my chosen path.