5 Mistakes You’re Making in Your Lifestyle Routines

Because “health is wealth”.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle has always been a priority of mine. As I have gone through health issues throughout my life, I have learned of different ways to maintain my healthy lifestyle. Along the way, I have made mistakes that even though they seemed small, made a difference to my healthy lifestyle routines.

This blog post is going to talk about the mistakes you could be making in your healthy lifestyle routines. These routines include your morning routine, night routine, self-care routine, exercise routine… pretty much any routine that contributes to your healthy lifestyle. Either way, these are all the mistakes to prevent.

If you are someone who wants to maintain a healthy lifestyle as well and want somewhere to start, this is the blog post for you.

Let’s dive in.

1 – Not having good habits

Good habits are a key component of your healthy lifestyle routines. Without them, it can hinder your healthy lifestyle routines and your overall well-being.

For instance, if your habits include a lack of planning with meals, lack of exercise, and procrastination, it can lead you to feel unsatisfied with your lifestyle.

To prevent this mistake, all you need to do is list healthy habits that you want to build. Think of habits that you know will make a difference in your life and will benefit you. Examples of habits may include:

• Regular exercise
• Good meal plan
• Consistent sleep schedule
• Going to your regular doctor appointments

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RELATED: How to Build Life Changing Habits

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2 – Lack of Planning

Because “failing to plan, is planning to fail”, right?

Planning is important for your healthy lifestyle routines because it helps you make healthier choices, prevent impulsive ones, and help you reach your goals.

Without planning, you may find yourself making more impulsive and unhealthy choices such as grabbing fast food because you didn’t have time to cook, or skipping your workouts because you didn’t have time for it. Maybe one instance where you had no choice to do those things wouldn’t make a big difference, but if it constantly happens, that’s where the small things make a big difference. (This is called the Compound Effect and I definitely recommend you read this blog post).

To improve your planning skills, start by using the tools you have. For example, use tools like calendars, to-do lists, and other productivity techniques to organize your daily activities. You can use your calendar to plan out your workouts, to-do lists to plan out your meal plans and other aspects of your healthy lifestyle, and other techniques that you feel will help you bring you closer to your goals.

It is important to have an action plan that gives you a good idea of how you are going to reach your goals and maintain your healthy lifestyle.

3 – Following too many healthy lifestyle accounts – many of which don’t relate to you

Don’t get me wrong, it is great to follow social media accounts that give you inspiration, motivation, and even some tips on how to reach your healthy lifestyle goals. However, following too many accounts, especially those that don’t align with your own goals, can be overwhelming and counterproductive.

One of the first reasons is that it can be a huge information overload. You’ll notice how many people have different advice and tips, and that can get confusing. On top of that, if you’re following accounts that don’t relate to your own goals and personal needs in the first place, you may find yourself adopting practices that are not even suitable for your own circumstances.

That’s why, it’s crucial to reconsider who you’re following. Unfollow accounts that don’t align with your personal lifestyle goals, and only follow accounts that relate more to your situation, interests, needs, and values. This will help prevent information overload.

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RELATED: Your Diet is Not Just What You Eat

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4 – Setting unrealistic goals & having high expectations for yourself

It’s essential to have goals and have an expectation of yourself to achieve them. However, when your goals feel unrealistic and you’re placing high expectations on yourself to achieve them, it can be detrimental to your self-esteem and self-image.

Examples of unrealistic goals can be:

• Doing 1-hour workouts 6 days a week if you’re only typically doing once a week.
• Waking up at 5:30 am, when you typically wake up at 8am.
• Drinking a gallon of water when you typically drink 1 litre.

Don’t get me wrong, these are all good goals that you can achieve one day. However, when you think about it, it is a big sudden change. When the goals are set too high, you may feel like you’re constantly falling short, leading to feeling like you’re failing.

That’s why, it’s important to start with small steps. For example, instead of jumping from one workout a week to six workouts a week, you just set a goal to do two workouts a week. Then, once you feel like you’ve nailed that, you can add another, and then another.

Same thing with waking up at 5:30am. Instead of going from waking up at 8am to suddenly waking up at 5:30am, start small by waking up 30 minutes earlier like, 7:30am, and then to 7am, and then so on.

When you break these down into smaller steps, it feels great to have those small wins along the way. When you have small wins, you build your self-confidence. It’s important to start with these small steps when building a better lifestyle. These are just simple and easy ways you can improve your routines.

5 – Ignoring the Bad Habits & Not fixing them

Ignoring your bad habits is pretty much not doing anything to fix them. Without acknowledging your negative habits, it can continue to persist and worsen as time goes on and you miss the opportunity for more positive change.

That’s why, to make sure that you’re not ignoring your bad habits, start by listing down what habits are currently holding you back from having a healthy lifestyle and achieving your goals. Once you are aware of them, then think of replacement habits that are better instead.

For example, if you have a bad habit of always scrolling, you can replace that habit with a walk. Or, if you have a habit of staying up late, you can replace that habit with having an exciting night routine that gets you excited for bed.

Nonetheless, in order to make more positive changes to your lifestyle, you need to do something about those habits that are holding you back. When you don’t, they will continue to hold you back.

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RELATED: Bad Habits to Stop in a Personal Growth Journey

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6 – Being inconsistent with your routines

One of the mistakes you can make in any routine is being inconsistent with them.

You need consistency with your routines in order to maintain your healthy lifestyle routines. Without consistency, it can affect your progress on your goals. When you frequently derive from your routines, it can be challenging to have momentum and develop positive habits.

To be more consistent with your routines, it all goes back to planning and starting small as discussed in #2 and #4. You can use tools such as calendars, putting reminders on your phone, or using habit trackers to stay on track. If you want to go further, you can even have an accountability buddy who can help you make sure that you are sticking with your healthy lifestyle habits and routines.

And, don’t forget to celebrate your wins! Every win is a building block to achieving your goals. Big or small, you are still moving forward.

7 – Neglecting your mental health

Having a healthy lifestyle is more than just working on your physical health. It also includes working on your mental health as well. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health.

To make sure that you are always prioritizing your mental health, you can practice self-care and have good habits as well (e.g. reading, journalling).

In fact, a lot of the strategies to prevent the mistakes mentioned in this blog post can also help with your mental health as well. These include having good habits, and breaking the bad ones, implementing good planning, revising who you are following on social media, starting small with your goals, and being consistent with your routines.

Take a SMALL STEP:

Here are small steps you can take to prevent these mistakes:

1. Not having the good habits – List habits that you want to build for your healthy lifestyle.
2. Lack of planning – Choose a planning tool – that can be electronic or paper.
3. Following too many healthy lifestyle accounts – Look through who you are following and unfollow the ones that aren’t aligned with your circumstances.
4. Setting unrealistic goals and having high expectations of yourself – Look at your current goals and see which ones you can revise.
5. Ignoring the bad habits, and not fixing them – List down the habits that are holding you back.
6. Being inconsistent with your routines – Choose a planning or tracking tool – e.g. reminders on your phone, calendar, or habit tracker.
7. Neglecting mental health – List down 5 of your favorite self-care activities.

To Wrap Up

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle can take some work. But, by having good habits, breaking the bad habits, implementing better planning, revising your social media following, starting small with your goals, and being consistent with your routines, it can help set you up for success.

You may have noticed that I have mentioned the importance of taking small steps a few times. I actually have a book about taking small steps to make progress called Small Steps to Progression. You can download it for free here and you’ll also be able to access my Free Resources Library!

In the meantime, don’t forget to stay kind to yourself and celebrate your wins!

-Lauren 😊

P.S I recommend you read these blog posts next:

• How to Take Care of Your Mental Health When You’re Busy
• 8 Personal Development Goals You Need to Start Setting
• Essential List of Non-Negotiable Daily Habits to Implement

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