Written by: Christine Campbell

Are you someone that struggles to add in new healthy habit? You are not alone! We can have the best of intentions, but it is a human struggle to implement a new behaviour. James Clear wrote an awesome book on habit building called Atomic Habits. Here are some of the helpful tips from his book that will help transform your habits.

“Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations” – James Clear

“The first three laws of behavior change—make it obvious, make it attractive, and make it easy—increase the odds that a behavior will be performed this time.” – James Clear

1. Make it obvious:
   1. Print out your home exercises from physio (or your workout routine) and tape them to your fridge or wherever you will notice it
   2. Place your exercise equipment (bands/balls) out where you plan to use them daily
   3. Track your progress:
      1. Use a hand-written calendar and mark X’s each time you do the new habit
      2. Digital habit trackers, such as Habitify or Coach Me are also great!
      3. Text msg reminders from PhysiTrack
         1. If you have received exercises from our PhysiTrack program, you can program it to send you text message reminders throughout the day

1. Habit stacking:
   1. This is a concept in James Clear’s book that is genius! Pair your new habit with something you already do each day. As an example, right after your done your morning tea or coffee do your physio exercises. Having the reminder of the tea/coffee will prompt your brain to remember to do your exercises
2. Have an accountability partner:
   1. Tell friends or family what your goals are. By speaking your goals out our loud, and having others know what you are trying to achieve your motivation will rise.
3. Make it attractive:
   1. By completing your home physio exercises, hopefully the decrease in pain helps reinforce the habit
   2. James Clear also suggests that we should think more about the type of person we want to be by performing these habits, rather than the task/habit itself
4. Make it easy:
   1. James Clear suggests when starting a habit use the two minute rule. The new habit should only take two minutes to complete. By making it very possible to complete the habit daily, this helps to build a patten that can be expanded upon in the future.
      1. “The amount of time you have been performing a habit is not as important as the number of times you have performed it.”

If you want to dive in deeper and read James Clear’s book please reach out, we have a copy at the clinic.