Picture a normal day of a professional athlete or a successful start-upper for a second: Both follow an individual, but highly standardized daily routine. They get up at the same time every day, they brush their teeth, put on the same grey T-shirt, have a healthy breakfast, meditate, work out, do their job, have regular breaks and nutrition intakes, have a standardized sleep hygiene and finally go to bed at the same time and start all over again the next day.

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Customizing a perfect morning routine is on the bucket list of nearly every ambitious athlete for a good reason. Invest time into creating your personal routine too. ©opohodzhay/Getty Images

Creating new habits and following them sounds quite boring and not very creative, yet the opposite is the case. Positive habits are an enabler for high performance both mentally and physically. Let’s take a moment and reflect on some of our own, positive habits. Most of the time, they feel good and effortless and give us confidence when executing them. But where does this inner perception come from?

But what’s the science behind this?

Creating new habits to free up mental capacity

Habits save our mind energy and can improve our ability to make important decisions. Studies have shown that “the brain is like a muscle: when it gets depleted, it becomes less effective”. Resisting a delicious piece of cake and choosing a healthy salad instead, or working very focused on a project for many hours are only two examples of thought processes which require conscious effort. We’re flexing our executive function muscles and all these actions use up our mental capacity. When they’ve been emptied completely, we are not able to mentally perform at our very best anymore, which can even lead to taking wrong decisions and actions, because our mind muscle is exhausted and weak.

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Schedule important meetings early in the day when your mind muscle is full of energy and ready to rock. ©Westend61/Getty Images

With the awareness that our mind does not have endless capacity, the importance of creating new habits becomes even clearer. Habits can be seen as high-performance enablers by saving important mental capacity that can be used to perform better, make the right decisions and be mentally fit when it counts.

Mastering the habits challenge

The challenge kicks in when the enthusiasm of the first week fades away and willpower decides our success or defeat.

During a recent Manager Development Program at adidas, I was challenged to learn something completely new in the field of sports or wellbeing and practice it every day over a 30-day period. I challenged myself to meditate every morning for 15 minutes and I’m proud to say that I did it and, even better, I’m still doing it every morning – I managed to create a new habit!

When reflecting on my journey together with my learning buddies who completed the same program, I identified five key factors that helped me to follow through. Check them out below.

Woman sitting cross-legged in an open office space, work atmosphere, meditation, yoga, cross-legged, green space, adidas HQ, Herzogenaurach, GaamePlan A
Finding focus and standardizing actions is not about “ohmmms” and “zens”, it is about binding your existing energy to create the greatest impact you can have.

Five tips that help you create a new, long-lasting habit

1. Have a plan

The key is to practice your new behavior each and every day for at least 30 days or even longer. I found an interesting article that talked about 66 days to really create a new habit.

Sit down and visualize the perfect scenario for doing your new habit – what time of the day is it, what do I need to do it, how does it make me feel, why am I doing it. Then write down a list you need to follow. To get started, set a recurring alarm clock that reminds you to do your exercise on a daily basis (don’t choose the alarm that you’re using for your wakeup call as this sound can have negative connotations). Use your list to keep track.

2. Be vocal about your goal

Involve your family, friends and colleagues in your challenge. By being vocal about your goal, you hold yourself accountable and you feel more committed. I asked my partner to remind me and also push me in case I’m struggling to keep on track.

3. Find a learning buddy

Ask someone to be your learning buddy who is also trying to create a new habit. Why? For the same reason why individual athletes train in groups: Being in it together feels good and you quickly realize that you share the same challenges and struggles along the way. Benefit from your learning buddy’s experiences and observations and vice versa. Push each other and have someone to talk to whenever you need some motivation.

4. Get your head and your heart in the game

A healthy portion of enthusiasm and motivation is essential to follow through, but these emotional components can be backed up by cognitive impulses. Inform yourself about your new behavior, its advantages and the science behind it. Why does it feel like it feels? Why do I act like I act?

5. Journal and track your progress

I was lucky that my meditation app tracked my progress and I even got virtual badges after a streak of 10 and 30 days. Seeing your journey visualized makes you proud and helps you to stay on track. For me, journaling was also a great companion. Further down the road, you might look back at your notes and realize just how much things change. Feeling and seeing change is the best motivation booster. Notes also help to adjust and fine-tune your new habit once it has become part of your routine.

Woman focused and writing diary at work desk, work environment, healthy work place, healthy atmosphere, habits, routine, logging, consistency, adidas HQ, Herzogenaurach, GamePlan A
Logging my daily insights set me up for sustainable success.

Your challenge: Give it a shot

Reading through the tips now, it seems an easy gig to create a new habit and I hope you already have something in mind that you want to try, but it’s actually pretty tough to build and sustain a new behavioral pattern. So, keep in mind that it’s the same challenge for everyone and that our minds need time to wire or rewire. Be patient, keep on pushing and follow through.

Here’s my challenge to you: Choose a new sports or well-being exercise and practice it every day for 30 days. Use the tips above and tackle it with a growth mindset.

Use the comments below to share your progress, thoughts and experience and I’ll try to help you stay on track.

15 COMMENTS

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Thanks for sharing your tips, Nina. Will definitely try it :-)
Reply
Hi Lisa,

thanks for your comment.
What habit do you want to create? I'm curious :)

Keep me posted.

Best,

Nina
Reply
by Elisa Blank 11.10.2018
Hi Nina,

Inspiring thoughts as always ;-)

I also see myself as a creature of habit and it truly helps me to e.g. have the same sleeping pattern and a clear workout plan.

However, I would really like to try a well-being exercise that helps me to always have a positive attitude also on stressful uni days. Any ideas?

Best,

Elisa
Reply
Nina Weihrauch
Nina Weihrauch | Editor Elisa Blank 16.10.2018
Hi Elisa,

thanks for your comment. How are you?

I can only recommend to try out meditation. 10 min. per day can make a difference. Especially in the beginning, you can also start with 2 or 5 minutes per day to get into the routine.
I started using the app Headspace and it helped me a lot. It sets me up for being at ease and in balance. Especially if you're facing stressful time periods, it helps you to order your thoughts and give them a break as well. It's like a 10-minute holiday for the head. :)

Let me know if you want to learn more about my experiences.

All the best,

Nina
Reply
by Linda Evenhuis 11.10.2018
Hi Nina,
great to see how you are focusing on getting to the next level, really inspiring to see how you bring the MDE program alive!
Keep on rocking!
Best regards,
Linda
Reply
Nina Weihrauch
Nina Weihrauch | Editor Linda Evenhuis 16.10.2018
Thanks for your kind words, Linda.
I'm doing my very best to always keep pushing.

Is there anything you would like to add to my tips above? I know you're an expert in that area.

All the best,

Nina
Reply
by Kevin Leurquin 14.10.2018
One of my habits. . . giving more! I want to share what my gifts with others and spread positive words of encouragement one person at a time.
Reply
Nina Weihrauch
Nina Weihrauch | Editor Kevin Leurquin 16.10.2018
Sounds super, Kevin.

All the best for you!
Reply
by Sara Gunderson 16.10.2018
Hi Nina - I loved this article! What a thorough and engaging breakdown of the why and how of building habits!

Habit tracking apps like Way of Life are super motivating for this process. You can literally see a chart of your progress which helped me put minor setbacks in perspective. For instance, if I missed a workout or 2 or 3, I could see that even though this week sucked, my trend over time was going in the right direction and all I had to do was get back in the game next week.

I added positive habits like drinking more water, journaling and packing lunch using Way of life. And what’s amazing is the compounding effect of small, daily actions over time: I’m stronger than I’ve ever been in my life!

Do you use habit tracking apps? If so, which ones do you like?
Reply
Nina Weihrauch
Nina Weihrauch | Editor Sara Gunderson 16.10.2018
Hi Sara,

thanks so much for sharing your own experience.
I agree with you that making our own progress visible is a motivation booster. I use different apps for different habits. For running I use Runtastic. Just yesterday, I completed a pretty tough run of my training plan. Seeing the activity graphs going up months over months is super encouraging for me to keep it up.
For my meditation practice I use Headspace.
I'll definitely check out your recommendation for the more daily, little things, like drinking enough water, etc.

What's the next positive habit you want to work on?

All the best,

Nina
Reply
by Svea 23.10.2018
Hi Nina,
Hearing you talking about meditating I really admired you, but felt like I wouldn't be up for it. So I picked a different challenge for myself - improving my Spanish, 15 minutes every evening. After successful 50 days and with the tips from your article, I think I might now be ready to give meditation a try. So thanks for this great article!
Headspace will be my next download ;)
Reply
Hi Svea,

wow, that's impressive. How's your Spanish now? I guess your next holidays will be in a Spanish-speaking country?! ;)
Looking back at the 50 days, how did you find it to make the 15 min. practice a routine?

All the best for the meditation kick off.

Nina
Reply
by Sofía 26.11.2018
Hi Nina,
I´m Sofía. I run 3-4 times a week in the afternoon. The thing is that I wanted to change my running schedule because summer is approaching and where I live temperatures are really high. So, I came up with this plan of doing my running routine at 6 am.
I found some difficulties and lack of motivation during the first week because of bad organization. But now, with your helpfull tips, I believe I can do it better.
Thank you very much for sharing!
Reply
Nina Weihrauch
Nina Weihrauch | Editor Sofía 03.01.2019
Hi Sofia,

please excuse my late reply and thanks for sharing your experience.
I feel you. creating a new habit is very challenging and even if you think that you've fully integrated it in your daily life, an extremely busy period at work or at home can make you struggle. But: it's all about getting back on track, having the right mindset and take some pressure away by being organized, as you mentioned as well.
So I'd love to hear if you're finding into your new routine and what you've experienced over the last weeks?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Nina
Reply
by Kaye Hamer 27.04.2019
Thanks for the artical. I'm keen to start planning some new changes
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