Make your habits the best to get the best results!
What is a habit?
A habit is “when someone is effective in maintain behaviors that have become habitual and are supported by automatic responses to relevant cues.”1 In other words, habits are an ingrained behavior pattern that requires no thought on your part but has a specific trigger. No trigger, no carrying out the habit. They are formed by repeating the behavior after the trigger until it is unconscious.
How do habits affect performance?
Training efforts are more effective if you get yourself in the right mindset before they start by mentally preparing to train. Example: take a moment to drop other events and occurrences that have your attention before heading in to practice so your mind is clear. Trigger: you get out of the car for practice. Action: while walking into practice, you shift your attention to practice topics like speed work or strategy.
Prepping for training/competing helps you develop systems to ensure you have what you need when you need it.
Example: you put your dirty clothes in the laundry when you get home from training or competing, and, if you have enough for a washing machine load, you run the load so your clothes are clean. Trigger: you get home and unpack your gym bag; action: you put the clothes in the laundry.
You prep food for a pre-training or pre-competition snack and a recovery snack or meal the day before so you can grab it the day of the event. You fill bottles with water, sports drink, or a post-workout protein shake. Trigger: you put your food containers and bottles in the dish washer and threw out any wrappers; action: you prep food and drinks for tomorrow and pack them so they’re easy to grab in the morning.
You do your rehab and prehab religiously, but have tied it to something fun – or at least more interesting. Maybe you do it after a workout while still at the training facility. Or maybe you do it at night, while streaming your latest show or listening to a podcast. Perhaps it’s right after you grab your first cup of coffee in the morning. Trigger: you turn on the TV; action: you start foam rolling.
You repack your bag with fresh gear the night before: shoes, helmets, pads, goggles, fins, poles, harnesses, fuel, fluids, gi, rash guard, and so on. You even remember that travel-sized foam roller if that’s when you fit in your rehab/prehab or use it as part of your recovery! Trigger: you unpacked your bag and started some laundry; action: you repacked your bag.
Food Intake
You have healthy snacks visible on the counter and healthy meals in the fridge that are front and center when you open the door. Trigger: you get home from a tournament and you’re starving; action: you grab an apple to eat while you heat up some leftover chicken stir fry with rice and veggies.
Later that night, you’re feeling snacky but you aren’t sure what you want. Maybe something salty? So you make circuits through the kitchen and check out options in the fridge, the cabinets, the pantry and on the counter. Happily, you have some salty seasoned veggies available because it’s summer and you’re a salty sweater. Trigger: feeling snacky; action: find an appropriate food that also meets your performance needs.
You plan your food to match your goals, which can be one or several of the following: weight loss, weight gain, muscle gain, performance, metabolic flexibility/ease of switching from using fat for fuel to using carbs and back again, staying hydrated, getting in enough fruits and vegetables, cutting out added sugars, managing a chronic disease, or practicing pre-game routines. This means that you plan your food in advance and either take what you need or know where to buy and what to choose if you’re getting food out. Trigger: you have a tournament this weekend that will require extra food and fluids as well as protein because you’re working on feeling less hungry during games; action: you decide in advance which foods will meet those requirements, like chicken sandwiches and protein shakes. Secondary action: you pull out the cooler and make sure you have ice available for this weekend.
How to Change Habits
- Think through what you need to get done.
- Get educated or decide what you want to change.
- Learn to recognize your triggers.
- Tie your triggers to different actions. These should start small.
- Tie your trigger/action steps together into a series of getting things done. Trigger: you get home from a tough training session and you’re hungry; action: you drop your bag by the door and head for the fridge. You see the apples and grab one to eat while you heat up your chicken stir fry. Trigger: when you’re done eating, you put your dishes away; action: you get your bag and take out the dirty clothes. Trigger: you emptied your gym bag; action: you refill it with clean clothes and equipment for your next training session. Trigger: you sit down to catch up with your significant other and scroll through the news; action: you grab the foam roller and start working that tight IT band.
Summary
This process can be very useful if you’re interested in change. But it can also be painful, as habits are often unconscious! But there are steps to make this process easier.
Need help with this? Contact Dr. Schubert here for a 15 minute FREE Discovery Call.
Interested in health and wellness coaching to build yourself a better set of habits? Check out the options here.
Choice architecture, or adjusting what you see and have immediately available in your home, can affect the food choices you make. Learn more here.
References
- Cleo G, Isenring E, Thomas R, Glasziou P. Could habits hold the key to weight loss maintenance? A narrative review. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2017:30(5);655–664. doi: 10.1111/jhn.12456.
- Clear, J. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. New York: Avery; 2018.