Adopt healthy habits with minimum effort
Use our REP system to make forming healthy habits feel effortless!
The following scenario might sound familiar. You decide to create a new healthy habit, such as going to the gym. You’re feeling good about your new routine so the first few visits are easy. Then in week two something crops up at work and you miss a session.
Then you go on a night out with some friends, you get home late and are too tired to work out the next day. By now your initial enthusiasm has worn off and finding time to train seems like too much hard work. In week three you make it to the gym once, which feels like a waste of time so you decide to delay your new gym routine for a couple of months and get back into it when the summer holidays are on the horizon.
There’s a good reason why your trainers in this imaginary scenario are now gathering dust. It’s because you only did one of the three steps it takes to establish a new healthy habit. If you want to establish a new training routine then the easiest and most effective way is to use our REP system, which stands for Reminder, Exercise and Pay-off. Here’s how it works:
Healthy habit step 1: Reminder
Your brain has a tendency to ignore the stuff that it’s not reminded about. So if you want to increase your chances of going to the gym then you need to set up a few cues, such as leaving your gym bag by the door so you just need to pick it up in the morning. You can also write the session into your diary or even leave a note on your desk at work reminding yourself that you’ve got a training session to do.
Healthy habit step 2: Execute
The next step is to execute the new behaviour by completing the gym session. To make that as simple as possible, you need to make sure that you’re following a good workout plan and you know exactly what you’re supposed to do when you set foot in the gym.
If you turn up without a plan your session will be aimless and lack the intensity required to make positive changes to keep you motivated.
Healthy habit step 3: Pay-off
This is the reward that you give yourself for completing the session. Just make sure that the reward isn’t made of dough, coated in sugar and stuffed full of jam.
The reward could be that you get to watch an episode of your favourite TV show. Or you could say to yourself that if you complete all the sessions of your New Body Plan programme that you’ll go for a weekend away or do an exciting trip or activity.
In that example, you can tick off the sessions as you go and move ever closer to your better-body goal – and then give yourself a big pat on the back.
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