What are your anchor habits?
The habits that give you stability. The habits that keep you on track. The anchors that help your ship weather a heavy storm.
For me, I know that:
- If I start my morning with a healthy breakfast, it sets the tone for the rest of my meals that day.
- If I go to bed earlier and get enough sleep, I have more energy to workout and crave less sugary foods the next day.
- If I take the time to plan my meals and stock up my kitchen with healthy foods over the weekend, it’s easy to eat well during the week.
- If I exercise on the weekend, it keeps me anchored to a healthy lifestyle rather than letting the weekend be my “weak end”.
- If I eat enough vegetables with each meal, I feel satisfied and stay fuller for longer.
- If I eat enough protein throughout the day, I recover better from my workouts and feel less sore afterward.
For some people, these anchors are morning routines. For others, it’s their religious rituals. For others still, it’s physically going to a gym or checking in with their coach.
The most successful people all have specific anchors that keep them on track.
I want you to think carefully about what your anchor habits are and what consequences they have.
The right anchor habits will make staying on track with your goals so much easier. The wrong anchor habits or lack of anchor habits will make it so much harder.
Anchor habits are often a lesser means to a greater end, for example:
- Maybe you don’t need to force yourself to do yet another diet in order to get your junk food eating under control, you simply need 30 mins more sleep each night.
- Maybe you and your significant other don’t need to agree on absolutely everything, you simply need better ways of communicating with each other and handling disagreements.
- Maybe you don’t need to restart your diet every Monday, you simply need to add in more healthy activities over the weekend to give yourself some structure.
- Maybe you don’t need a new app or productivity technique at work, you simply need to get better at blocking out unnecessary distractions.
- Maybe you don’t need to meticulously count every calorie in order to properly portion your food, you simply need to eat a bit slower and get more in-tune with how hungry or full you are.
The best anchor habits are ones that make other good habits easier to do.
They’re often the boring, unsexy, most obvious things that we tend to gloss over in pursuit of faster and bigger results. They tend to be cliches for a reason – they work.
What anchor habits can you focus on doing more often to help yourself stay on track more easily and get better results?
