Use This Uncomplicated Formula To Create New Midlife Habits AND Enjoy The Process

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Welcome to the Easy Aging Show. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know about a change for the Simple Saturdays episodes. These are the one- to three-minute episodes with a quick tip that you can take action on immediately.

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This content is moving to the weekly emails on Wednesdays. So while the Simple Saturday episodes are going away, you can still access the information in the Wednesday emails. Same content, different format.

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For the record, it's only one email a week, friend. Trust me, I do not send out more than one email a week for one key reason: I don't like getting more than one email a week from anyone.

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Sometimes I'll sign up for something, download the free content and then, boom! I open my inbox and I can't see anything but emails from that particular group or person. So I'm not going to do that to other people, I promise.

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Today I want to talk about lifestyle goals, making lifestyle changes. These are different than specific one-time goals.

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For example, one-time goals are things like running a marathon or writing a novel. These goals are one-time goals because when you're done, you're done. Either you achieved the goal or you didn't.

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Lifestyle goals, however, are related to changing the way you live your life on a daily or weekly basis, and that change is going to be ongoing. Lifestyle goals are primarily about creating new habits.

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For example, you want to lose weight, you want to stop eating so much sugar, you want to start an exercise habit or stop biting your fingernails or create new friendships or work less. Whatever it is, these will be ongoing habits that you're going to establish.

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You've probably heard the phrase, "The joy's in the journey" but I have to be honest, sometimes making changes to the way we live our lives isn't that much fun. I'll be the first to admit, I've dropped more than one habit because I was getting worn out.

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So if you want to find the joy in the journey, you can do this by attaching a reward to parts of the process. You want to do this because if you've been great about fulfilling your goals and creating this new habit, you deserve a treat every now and then.

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So grab a pen and paper because I'm going to give you five steps. It's a simple formula that you can use to start creating midlife habits and actually enjoying the process more.

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1. Get specific on the goal

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Be very specific on the lifestyle change that you want to make. Your goal is to create a new habit, but what will that habit be? You need to define it clearly. Are you going to drink more water or journal daily or spend more time outside?

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Maybe your new habit is to be out in the sun more, to be out in nature for 15 minutes a day. Figure out what this new habit looks like in real life. Are you going to be sitting in the sun, or are you going to meditate while you're there? Do you want to take a book and get some reading done, or would you prefer a crossword or Sudoku?

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Determining what the habit actually looks like is going to play a huge role in your ability to succeed with this particular lifestyle change.

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You're going to do one habit for 90 days. Yes, that's three months. At the end of that 90 days, you're going to see where you are and ask yourself, "Do I need more time with this habit, or can I start incorporating a new habit that I wanna create without losing this one?"

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For the record, I'm speaking to myself right now. There are days I think I have the habit set, so I try to incorporate a new one. I'll get so focused on creating the second habitt that I let the first one fizzle out, and I'm left wondering, "What happened?"

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So 90 days is a fantastic amount of time to get that habit embedded before you move to the next one.

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2. Figure out what your rewards are

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More than likely, when you think about it hard enough, it's going to be the little things that you want to reward yourself with. The tiny things, not the extravagant, expensive things. The little things like taking a bubble bath, going for a walk outside, planting things in your garden.

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The key part here is to make sure you're not doing anything that is detrimental to your overall goal. For example, if you've been doing great with eating less sugar and it's time to reward yourself, the last thing you want to do is eat an entire cake. You hear me? (I don't feel like I have to explain this more.) Just don't pick anything that's detrimental to what you're moving toward.

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3. Chart it out

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Create a roadmap of steps that will get to your goal. Then...

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4. Study your roadmap and decide where you want to reward yourself

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When you look at the roadmap, you'll probably see significant milestones that would be great places for you to reward yourself. For example, if you eat chocolate every day at 3PM and you want to break that habit, how many days or weeks do you feel would be a huge accomplishment for you? Would it be 14 days or 30 days? Would it be six weeks?

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Figure out what that big accomplishment is, and plan your reward. Be sure to reward the harder steps, the things that are hardest for you to overcome. Because when you do reward yourself, it's going to be that much sweeter.

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5. When you get the reward, savor it.

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Friend, don't rush through it. Just relax, enjoy it. Pat yourself on the back. Tell your friends, tell your social media folks. The key thing here is: Don't blast through it like it's no big deal. It is a big deal. So acknowledge it and fully enjoy that sense of satisfaction and pride that you're getting from achieving your goal.

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The reason I want you to write this down is to help you see very clearly what your roadmap is. If you get off track, look at your roadmap and get back on track. Don't beat yourself up. Just look at your roadmap and get back on track.

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Because when it comes to creating new habits and making lifestyle changes, the joy is in the journey. Enjoy the little steps along the way. One of my mentors, Kyle Cease, says:

"When you choose the new life, your life becomes a massive amount of ongoing lessons and freedom, joy, and surrender."

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There's so much in store for you, so be sure you're finding the good in every step and finding pleasure along the way. Enjoy the journey, friend.

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I'll see you in the next episode and until then, peace, love and blessings to you and yours. Take care. Bye-bye! 

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