As I’m sure most other people out there can agree on, keeping up with lifestyle habits that are particularly new is quite difficult at first. Since a habit is formed within so many days (I’ve heard 5 weeks, 22 days, and even 60 days), it only makes sense that maintaining that habit early on is tougher than keeping it going later down the road.
For my partner and me, it’s been tough to continue to cook for ourselves every night. We recently started to eat much healthier by adopting a plant-based diet, but there have been times when we didn’t want to cook and ended up ordering food out instead. This is harmless when attempting to get yourself moving forward with a specific diet (especially since restaurant food tastes so great), but the fact of the matter is it can really impact your budget if you’re not careful. And while we typically try to keep our eating out at the same price as we’d have it cooking in, that can go awry when beers enter the picture.
So, lately we’ve been trying to cook more at home, and we’ve developed a little system that has held us accountable quite well. By taking just a few cheap moving boxes and placing our produce in them (whether in the fridge or on the table if the produce doesn’t need refrigerated), we’ve been much better at being certain to use it within the week. And this, ultimately, encourages us to cook far more often.
I wouldn’t say it’s the cheap moving boxes that truly doing the work for us in this instance. Rather, it’s the idea that we’re forcing ourselves to look at it differently. And that’s what is quite useful in affecting your own motivation and willpower. Being able to look at something from a new perspective isn’t easy, and doing so to better yourself is even tougher. But the moment you find a system that works for you, like our box system, I advise you to stick with it. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending months learning a new great habit and then becoming so lazy that the habit ends altogether and you’re back to square one.
Just remember to always attempt to improve your life. This wisdom has honestly kept me on the right track ever since I realized that’s all that matters in life. So long as you’re attempting to shore up your weaknesses and improve on your strengths, you’re doing just fine as a fellow person in this amazing world.
