Building Healthy Habits for 2024

By C.J. Martin

New Year’s Resolutions get a bad rap. It may be true that most resolutions are abandoned before they are achieved, but that should not be an indictment of the goal-setting process. The goals are often sound and meaningful to the individual resolving to achieve them, but just as frequently, that individual lacks the necessary tools and systems to stay on track.

It’s best to celebrate the newfound motivation that accompanies the turn of the new year and also seek to build tactical skills that allow desired behaviors to become habits before motivation lulls. With these new tools, 2024 can be the year that you build enduring healthy habits.

Identify Why This New Habit Is Important to You

MAC members have access to not only robust facilities and programming options but also world-class fitness coaches who are experts in helping them create lasting habits. MAC Fitness Coach Josh Sargeant is a PhD student in human health and performance who is focused on studying behavior change and habit formation. As a first step, he suggests finding the true “why.”

“The cornerstone of lasting change is a meaningful ‘why.’ Research shows that when your reasons for change resonate with your personal values, you’re more likely to stick to your goals,” Sargeant says. “Start by asking yourself what truly drives you to be healthy. Is it to feel more energetic, to play with your kids, or to challenge yourself? This personal insight is your guiding star.”

Understanding why you’ve chosen your resolution helps to sustain motivation when you get discouraged, as well as ensures that you’ve set your sights on the correct goal. Many abandoned goals were doomed from the beginning for the same reason — the goal was too big.

Start Small, Establish Consistency & Progress Slowly

Two of the best books on habit formation, Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg and Atomic Habits by James Clear, share a common starting point. They both recommend setting small, manageable goals that require minimal effort. When developing a new habit, you want to give yourself an enormous chance of success. Lasting habits are formed through consistency; selecting a behavior that deviates too far from your current habits undermines consistency. Accordingly, start with behaviors that are easily achieved. These small habits help you overcome inertia to get started, and then as you build momentum, you can expand into more challenging behaviors. Here’s an example:

Desired behavior: Take a walk after dinner. (Say you’re not currently doing this behavior at all.)

Attractive, audacious goal: Walk for 30 minutes after dinner every night.

Small, realistic path to habit formation: Walk for at least five minutes after dinner four nights per week.

Reducing the audacious goal of 30 minutes to an easily attainable five minutes allows you to stay consistent even if a large work project, family crisis, or atmospheric river poses an obstacle to a longer walk that evening. Most people can find five minutes in even the busiest schedule. The smaller goal also doesn’t preclude you from walking for more than five minutes when circumstances permit. So, when you have the time and energy, you might enjoy a 20-minute walk and should celebrate your “extra credit” instead of feeling as if you failed by not making a full 30 minutes.

Once you’ve locked in the consistency of walking for at least five minutes, you can start slowly increasing the expectation until, over time, you have developed the consistency to achieve the more audacious goal. This process should be slow and gradual. Before increasing the duration or intensity of a desired behavior, make sure it’s so routine that it doesn’t feel as if it takes effort. Then make sure that incremental progress goal feels equally attainable to the initial behavior goal. If your goal jumps from five to 10 minutes and negatively impacts your consistency, go back to the last point at which the behavior felt routine and start rebuilding from there.

Celebrate Wins

Research consistently shows that positive reinforcement is integral to creating habits — both desirable and undesirable. In Tiny Habits, Fogg points at the game Candy Crush as a wonderful example of how a series of small celebrations can create consistency (or addiction). Every time a player is successful, they receive rewards in the form of points, sounds, and even an affirmation of “Sweet!” As simple as these tiny celebrations may seem, they are the key to keeping players engaged.

While it’s unlikely any resolution involves playing more Candy Crush, this principle of small celebrations can be used to drive consistency every time you perform your desirable habit. A celebration can be as simple as a fist pump or an affirming statement said immediately after the habit is performed. It could also be sensory — for example, eating a small piece of dark chocolate immediately upon returning from a post-dinner walk in the example above. The key is to find something you can do consistently and immediately upon completing the desired behavior.

Anchor or Stack New Habits to Old Habits

Both Fogg and Clear also advise that the best way to create consistency with a new behavior is to attach it to a habit that is already routine. Think of habits you do naturally without an external prompt, such as showering before work, brushing your teeth, or eating. Chances are good that you don’t need to set reminders to do these things; you just do them naturally in the course of the day. Those are ideal behaviors to which you can anchor a new habit.

Use these behaviors as a prompt to act. For example, as soon as you turn on the shower, it could be a prompt to do a set of push-ups before stepping into the shower. Or, putting toothpaste on your toothbrush could be a trigger to take a vitamin or medication before brushing your teeth. In the original example, eating dinner is the routine act to which a five-minute walk is tethered. As long as you’re going to eat dinner, you also receive a prompt to take a walk.

Recruit an Accountability Buddy

Sargeant points to the importance of a positive environment and supportive social circle as being essential to lasting change. “Changing a habit isn’t just a mind game — it’s influenced by your environment, your social circle, and even your beliefs,” he says. “It’s harder to create a habit if those around you don’t value the behavior you’re attempting to adopt, and even harder if your social circle creates disincentives or distractions from making positive change.”

Luckily, MAC provides incredible opportunities to be surrounded by a community of like-minded, healthfocused individuals. Pairing up with a friend who is also working on a new healthy habit is a great way to feel supported and accountable to acting consistently. Additionally, MAC’s team of fitness coaches serve as both educators and accountability partners to members and can provide the jumpstart many people need to establish healthy habits.

Creating an optimal environment also includes orienting around activities that are enjoyable. There are countless ways to exercise and eat well, so don’t feel limited to a single activity or nutritional philosophy. If you like a competitive challenge, take up a sport like climbing, handball, squash, or basketball. If you are a social person, look for more social activities. That could be a group exercise session, water volleyball, pickleball, or a hiking/walking group. There is no place in the world that offers as many healthy activity options as MAC; take advantage of that and jump into something that you’ll look forward to doing consistently.

Make Setbacks Temporary

Setbacks often happen on the path to consistency. Life is dynamic, with constantly changing demands on time. Injuries can impact physical abilities, and emotional stress can make previously effortless habits feel overwhelming. The key is to make these setbacks temporary by adapting quickly to ensure that a small rut or setback doesn’t linger.

For example, if you built up to walking for 20 minutes after dinner but find yourself with new and significant demands on your time, adapt the plan or return to a five-minute walk until this stage passes. If an injury keeps you from walking, shift the healthy habit to something attainable, like writing in a gratitude journal for five minutes after dinner or taking the same amount of time to ensure that ingredients for a healthy breakfast are easily accessible for the next day.

There are times when it’s possible to fully commit and put a lot of effort into healthy habits, other times when simply maintaining is optimal, and times when it’s necessary to step back and recalibrate to adapt. Coach Sargeant reminds everyone that “change happens in stages; it’s not an overnight leap, but rather a series of steps. Understanding your current stage helps tailor your approach, making each step more effective.” It’s important to be honest with yourself and work to the level at which you can be consistent rather than getting frustrated or giving up on your journey.

For any MAC members who need assistance to make 2024 the year of adopting new healthy habits for life, please let MAC’s team of fitness coaches know. They are here to help members succeed!