21 days of elevation: Corona lock-down habit challenge

South Africa is currently on lock-down for 21 days as a result of the Corona virus.. While it is tempting to complain about it and see the negative side of things, I think it is necessary to see the next couple of weeks for what it really is: a window of opportunity to get 1% better each day.

How?

The answer is HABITS.

What are habits? Habits are the small decisions you make and actions you perform every day, according to James Clear, the author of the bestselling book Atomic Habits. According to researchers at Duke University, about 40% of our actions on any given day is accounted for by habits. The things that we do on a regular basis ultimately make us who we are by shaping our beliefs, our behaviour, our thoughts and the next actions we take.

Usually, we have the excuse that we are “too busy” to adopt new habits. That is why this lock-down is the perfect time to start building habits that will ultimately propel you forwards and help you reach your goals. Here are a few tips on how to do just that:

Build identity-based habits

Changing a habit is hard. In order to really make a new habit stick, you must change some beliefs you have about yourself. James Clear calls this “identity-based habits”.

For example, if you have a belief that you are not an active person, or that you suck at exercise, adopting the habit of exercising regularly will be extremely hard. However, by changing that belief by reminding yourself that you have a body that is healthy and seeing yourself as active, you increase the odds of adopting this habit. Using affirmations and visualisation are also great strategies to change your beliefs. Some research has shown that mental training can almost be as effective as physical training and doing both is more effective than either alone. It may seem silly at first, but using “I am” statements like “I am an athlete” or “I am an active person” while seeing yourself actually doing the things that align with that statement, is a pretty powerful way to change your beliefs about yourself.

Celebrate the small wins

When trying to change or adopt a habit, the key to making it sustainable is to celebrate the small wins. With “small”, I mean really small. If your goal is to become healthier and eat more whole foods, celebrate each time that you choose to have a fruit as a snack instead of something processed. Celebrate each home-cooked meal served with veggies. Be proud of yourself for even the smallest wins.

Make it easy to remember

Sometimes we have the best intentions in the world to do something, but life gets in the way – and our intentions falls to the wayside. Make your habits easy to remember by putting reminders on your phone, having a habit tracker up on your wall, or getting an accountability partner to keep you accountable to follow through on your intentions.

The 21 days of elevation lock-down challenge

For the next few days, the Elevation community is focusing on adopting the following habits:

These habits are aimed at ELEVATING out health by incorporating all 3 aspects of health as defined by the WHO (World Health Organization):

• Mental health
• Physical health
• Social health

You can share your small wins on social media by tagging us on @healthelevation_nutrition on Instagram or Health Elevation Nutrition on Facebook.

If you want to take part in this challenge, you can download the 21 Days of Elevation Habit Tracker here to remind and motivate you to keep up the good work of building these habits.

Are you ready to ELEVATE? Let’s do this!