Maintain Your Healthy Habits Throughout the Year

Maintaining healthy habits throughout the year can be a challenge. Travel, parties, holidays—they all disrupt our routines. How can you stay on track in the face of constant disruptions?

In a recent interview on CBS This Morning, The New York Times bestselling author of Atomic Habits James Clear explained how. Here are three tips to keep your habits healthy all year round.

Reduce your scope but stick to the schedule.

It’s difficult to maintain a healthy routine when you leave home for work or pleasure. The tendency is to give up your entire system of exercise and healthy eating. So what can you do to keep to the routine?

James suggests we overcome challenges by maintaining our routines while reducing the scope. For example, if you’re used to working out an hour every day and then you can’t because of work or family obligations, just do a few minutes of exercise. If you do a short walk or a few push-ups each day, then you can maintain your routine of exercise so you can get back on track once the disruption is over. 

Design your personal environment for success.

Holidays and parties can disrupt healthy eating plans. Then, leftovers tempt us to stay on an unhealthy path. So what can you do with those leftovers?

Clear says design your environment to emphasize good eating over bad. Wrap the unhealthy leftovers in aluminum foil so you can’t see the tempting food. Then wrap the healthy leftovers in plastic wrap so you will see these instead (and maybe let a co-worker eat the bad stuff). Sometimes healthy eating is as simple as putting bad food out of sight.

Never miss twice.

One day, despite our best intentions, we will eat a fatty meal or fail to exercise, or both. When this happens, many people decide to abandon their good habits altogether. So what should you do when you miss a day?

Clear suggests you get back on track by never missing twice. The key is to accept some days you will fail and allow for that. Then get back to your healthy habit the next day. If you resolve to never miss two days in a row, you can keep your good habits going indefinitely.

For more tips, check out the interview on CBS This Morning.