6 Steps to Creating Healthier Habits in 2021

Available for Interviews: Dr. Alice Fong

Alice Fong, ND, is an integrative naturopathic doctor specializing in stress, integrative medicine, diet & weight loss, and is a business growth consultant for holistic healthcare providers.

What Dr. Alice Fong can say in an interview on
The 6 Steps to Creating Healthier Habits for 2021:

“Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.”   – Benjamin Franklin

 1) Acceptance. Forming habits is never easy; it is uncomfortable. This is why acceptance is important. Before you start on a journey to build healthy habits, you have to accept the fact that you will face hardships along the way—and that you might even have to stop half-way and start all over again. By accepting this reality from the get-go, you are setting yourself up with proper expectations so that when things don’t go as planned, your mind is already set to face it head-on.

 2) Redesign Your Environment. Our environment affects us more than we can imagine—it affects the decisions we make, the way we perceive things, and even our physical and emotional well-being. So if you are keen on building healthier habits, you might want to redesign your environment in a way that facilitates the building of desired habits (and discourages the recurrence of unhealthy ones).

 3) Set Clear Guidelines and Structures. Forming healthy habits is like traveling from one point to another. It requires deliberate effort to get to where you want to be. However, just like traveling, you need a clear roadmap to follow. This is the same for forming healthy habits; you need to have clear structures and guidelines to keep you on track.

 4) Find a Deeper Motivation or WHY. There needs to be an underlying motivation and reason WHY you want to build that healthy habit in the first place. That’s the best way to get you to stick with it.

 5) Evaluate. Now, just because they say it takes time to form habits, it doesn’t mean you really have to wait years and years before you evaluate whether or not your habit-forming plan is working. Take some time to revisit your plans and your progress. Ask yourself, is it working for me? Does it give me the result I am looking for?

 6) Get Support. External accountability may help ease the transition. Share with friends what you’re up to! Or get a coach! Don’t be afraid to share your dreams and your WHY because you might fail at them. Yes, it’s possible that might happen, but oftentimes, the more people you share with, the more likely you’ll do it. 

Habits are formed by repeatedly doing things over and over again until they become automatic. This, however, is easier said than done. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when trying to get rid of bad habits or building a healthier one. This is the reason why people have different levels of success in this endeavor. Some are just good at managing environmental factors, personal biases, and motivation to help them get past the mostly uncomfortable transition period. Following the steps above will bridge the gap between goals and actually achieving them.