Advanced Strategies for Habit Formation

What if you're tackling something as ambitious as managing diabetes or transforming your dead-end dating history?

These ideas will give you an extra boost:

1. Practice compassion. 

You're bound to slip up occasionally. Forgive yourself, and move forward.

2. Team up. 

Enlist a friend so you can exchange support and encouragement. Eat lunch with a colleague who is trying to lose weight too.

3. Write it down. 

Raise your awareness by keeping a journal about your campaign to stop swearing or start flossing. Note what happens on the days you stick to your program compared to the days when you drift back into old patterns.

4. Remove temptations. 

Eliminate the triggers that distract you from your objectives. Clear the junk food out of your kitchen or the cigarettes out of your car.

5. Design obstacles. 

Make it difficult to give in to your old tendencies. Leave your credit cards at home to prevent impulsive shopping sprees.

6. Go on vacation. 

Leave home for a while. Vacations are an ideal time to forge new habits because you can make a fresh start in different surroundings. Sit down to meditate each morning instead of becoming caught up in searching for lost socks or checking your email.